Trials of being an Overlord
by DeusExTranshuman
Summary: Why couldn't life be simple? I really only wanted to live a quiet life, get through Uni and get a decent job. Instead, I got yanked into a world where I'm suddenly the King, or Overlord, of a Nation. Honestly, it could have been worse. Rated M for Mature content, Lemons, Slavery and everything else you might imagine going with that.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing and all that you read here is for recreational purposes.**

 **AN: Hello, everyone! This is an attempt at a SI/CYOA-style story that has been hanging around my head for the last little while. It is uses the Overlord CYOA that I found on the internet and takes place within the world of Overlord 2. Keep in mind that this is a Crossover, so you can expect elements of other things such as games and films to be pulled into this at some point. Enjoy!**

You know, I enjoy the simple things in life. Just living my life and enjoying things like reading, music, maybe a good film from time to time, but I enjoyed that kind of thing. Add in the fact that I was going through University for a Beng Degree in Engineering, and I really didn't need all that much more to complicate my life.

Unfortunately, something, or someone, did get that particular Memo, or actively ignored it because of something that came through my E-mail when I wasn't paying attention and was waiting for my Exam results from the previous year of Uni. It was nothing really special, a CYOA from the look of it with a focus on being an Overlord rather than a planet, starship captain, Supersoldier, Parahuman from Worm, or whatever else existed out there. Seeing it, along with the message of Email asking for what I would do and replying to it, I figured it was some kind of survey that was just being sent out at random kind of like what Apple does from time to time to advertise things to past and present customers. I didn't think much of it as I filled it in.

For Housing, I figured that I'd go for an Undercity located in a massive underground cavern, that would give me the advantage in defences and making it more difficult to attack, while giving me a fair amount of resources to work with in terms of metals and precious gems. Add in the fact that the people that lived in it were perfectly capable of living underground with better Night Vision and an inability to get lost within the Labyrinth-like system of tunnels meant that it was all the better. Domain was rather easy to decide as I went for the option of being hidden away on an Island in the middle of the sea, this meant that I wouldn't have to worry about being attacked overland and that, so long as the surrounding sea was under my control, no one would be able to attack me.

Moving along, I looked at the Advisors that I had and figured that the Priestess would be the best option if I combined that with another Perk. Looked at the perks and noticed that many of them stated they could be learned at a later time, smiled at that as I focused down a few of them that you could either start with or get through dangerous deals. One thing that I did find odd, however, was that the number of shards was different and the options for becoming Immortal were not present, I knew that there should have only been 5 Shards at the base of it to allow for 5 powers, instead, I had 9 right from the start, something that I was all too happy with as I picked 9 Perks with them before moving on. The Perks I chose were simple ones, The Cult gave me a cult following that were absolutely loyal to me and would ensure that the 2000 people in the Domain followed me as well, even going so far as worshiping me in whatever fantasy this was. Telepathy, Alchemy, Form Changing and Shadow Bending were all as the name implied and pretty self explanatory so I picked them out with ease before picking Study, giving me a much greater Learning curve, and The Mind, increasing my perception of things, making me better at problem solving and faster rate of processing things through my mind. My last 2 perks were Demonic Magic and Natural Leader, both being rather self explanatory and being rather simple abilities as I moved on, passing the Followers section for the moment before looking at the Complications.

For Complications, I decided to only have a few, but to make them rather high up in terms of how dangerous they might be, as such, the first thing that I got was the T3 Dragon Pair, giving me an additional 4 gold Coins and another Shard, something that I intended to save for another option in the Followers section rather than on another perk. Another Complication was the T3 Hold Fast, this basically had the Kingdom I had being blockaded and all diplomatic ties being cut, however, it did have the nice benefit of giving me a total of 24 coins as well giving me a rather fair amount to start with as I added the T1 Monsters for another Coin. With all those Complications, I had an additional 29 Coins and another Shard on top of however much I had for my Followers.

Moving back to the Followers section, I saw that I only had the standard 10 Coins, not that it mattered since I had a total of 39 to work with. Still, with the way I had set things up, I decided that I wanted to create something that was pretty stand-alone, not really reliant on other kingdoms, hence I chose what I did. The first Followers I grabbed were a 3 Cooks to train others to prepare food for the kingdom and improve the standard of living, 4 Master Workers, 4 Blacksmiths and 2 more Beast Masters, these things were mainly for use in getting the infrastructure sorted out so that I could build on that. Next, I got 2 Captains of the Guard, a Knights, 3 Rangers and a Unit of Hunters, mostly for local defence and the like before moving on to other things like outside of the Kingdom as I thought about it. A Merchant, a Ship Captain, a Diplomat and 2 Spymasters would take care of foreign affairs rather easily while I then used the remaining 14 Coins for other things.

A Dryad for the Island since I had my kingdom underground, it would help with crops and would certainly help with attacks since they could be aided by Hunters. I got at least 3 Witches since I wanted the aid of magic while I got at least 3 Cultists with Geokinesis each and a Cultist group. Lastly, I got 2 Black Knight, 2 Pirate Captains, a Bandit Leader and 2 Bandit gangs. All of which seemed like the correct choices since I wasn't really going to be playing nice with other kingdoms and I had gone with the heavy dark view of things. However, one thing I noticed was the lack of options at the bottom of the page for things like Necromancy constructs and Demon summons, not that I minded, but it was curious.

Finally, I created my Pet Dragon with the single remaining Shard that I had, something that I was looking forwards to since I loved fantasy so much. For the Dragon, I decided to go with a Giant one rather than the other sizes, seeing it as the only one that was really any good as the Drake , Dragonne and Dragonborn seemed a bit on the small side to really inspire the dread in an enemy. Moving on, I looked at the options for types and picked the Black Dragon option, since it went so well with the fact that the kingdom was underground and hidden in darkness, the fact that it could spit a potent acid would also let it tunnel through the rock caverns quickly if needed. Finally, the perks of the Dragon, I went with Intelligent and Cunning, Human Form, Magic, and Dragon Riding, the added bonus of this being that I got a bond with the Dragon, allowing this character to talk with the dragon instantly through a mental connection.

With those choices made, I sent the thing back, having spent about 30 minutes just doing that before replying with it. However, the moment that I clicked the reply button, my world shifted and warped as I watched it moving before being replaced with nothing but black.

That was when the fun started.

 **XXX**

"Are you alright, Mr Lord?" A voice came from my left as I blinked myself back to reality, suddenly aware that the world had shifted and that I was not in my bedroom any more. Instead, I was standing at the head of a table with a few dozen people gathered around it, all of them wearing things ranging from Medieval chain-mail and plate armor in either dull silver or black, Leather armor with quivers on their back or simply clothing that made them look like nobles of some kind, some of the women were wearing dresses and the like, but it was nothing of note as I noticed that a few of the people around me had skin that was as black as coal while others looked paler than a ghost. Glancing to my left to the voice, I looked and saw a woman wearing a red clock that was hanging open with her chest being covered by a cloth wrap, holding her rather generous bust in place while she wore a simple pair of red cloth, trousers. Her hood was down and I could see her face, her skin being pale while her eyes were a shining white like everyone else, reminding me of Riddick from the movies named after him, with her brown hair held back in a ponytail that reached her waist. I remained silent for a second before nodding as my mind flashed, information coming to the forefront of it all as I became aware of who everyone at the table was, along with who I apparently was.

I mentally cursed as I recalled the CYOA sheet. I almost groaned as I realised that I had been ROB'd and dropped into the Kingdom that I had created, not necessarily a bad thing, but it helped that I apparently had all the perks that I wanted along with the memories of who I now was. My new name, apparently, was Corvus Dredd, the Lord of Darklight, the name of the city hidden within the massive rock caverns that had permeated the island that I was now on for centuries. It was an isolated place and one that hadn't really interacted with the rest of the world for a long time, but it was one that was bountiful with resources in the form of metals, gems and stone, Magic was a needed commodity here and was used regularly to help make life easier.

I, myself, stood rather tall, at least 6 foot 7 of solid muscle, wide shoulders and thick muscles hidden under a suit of armor and a thick leather cloak that hung from my shoulders. I knew what I looked like now as surely as if I had just looked in the mirror as I knew that I had a face covered in hardlines, a strong jaw and slightly recessed eyes with the same shining silver look as everyone else. My thick, black hair was cut short in a Crew Cut, with the sole exception to that being a reasonably long ponytail that was done in a braid at the back of my head that went down just passed my shoulders. Still, I knew that my appearance was not just different, but it was my knowledge as I found myself feeling the information flowing into me as I became aware of what I was capable of, all of which was very interesting and were things that I would need to practise since, while my new life seemed to have gained a fair bit of experience in using these gifts, I still had ways to improve. Though, I will admit that the addition that Alchemy here worked like a cross between Classical Alchemy and that of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was a rather nice bonus.

"Yes, I'm fine, Heran." I stated simply to the Priestess, her name coming back to me just as easily as the life of 25 years that both was and was not my own. "Just a bit tired right now. Spent a bit too much time last night in my Workshop, should have probably turned it in by Midnight, something to keep in mind for later." I stated simply, getting a small smile from her and a snort from the others gathered around the table that I was looking at. On the table, I noted a map of what I knew was the Island.

The Island itself was rather large, in the same of a Crescent with the tips being at least 20 km apart while a half present came from the Eastern side of it, this being the bottom of the Crescent since the top was dominated by jungles, marshes and a few swamps with the occasional hill and a single mountain which held most of the entrances to Darklight within it. The bottom of the Island to the East was covered in rocks, a few trees and the occasional shrub, however it was dominated by at least 2 active volcanos that constantly pumped out Lava and the biggest of which being on the Half Crescent that came out the bottom. The inside of the Crescent was mostly beaches with some cliffs towards either tip, while the outside was completely covered by Cliffs that rose high over the crashing waves and were nearly impossible to climb. On the map, I noticed a few other points of interest, namely, a line of ovals circling the Island, all coloured in green while the largest Volcano on the Island was crossed out with a large, red skull and crossed bones, I could guess what they were, though I did question what the blue crosses were that dotted the Island.

"Please continue with your report, Fergis." I stated as I glanced to my right, seeing the Master Ranger to my side, a tall, 6 foot 9 bear of a man that was wearing green Leather armor with a hood up while his braided beard was easy to see as he leaned forwards and nodded to me. Fergis was the leader of the Rangers and Hunters, specialists that scouted the land to keep it free of unauthorised Bandits and dangerous creatures, usually by killing them, skinning them and bringing back the meat and leather. Often times, Rangers and Hunters worked rather closely with the native Dryad, Ka'lis, who often pointed them in the direction of trouble and even helped the Workers finding land to farm on and wood to harvest, so long as we didn't take too much at any one time and replanted what we took. It was a good working relationship.

"As you wish, My Lord." He stated, his voice booming over the room. "In the last 2 weeks, the so-called 'Glorious Empire' has been pushing for landfall harder and harder. My Rangers, Hunters and I have had to fend off at least 3 separate attempts to give them a foothold on the Island during the night to prevent our forces from just being bombarded by Catapults from the boats blockading the Island. The local Orcs have been getting a bit uppity too, recently, probably just a new Chieftain that got a bit overconfident and thinks that he can try and take our holdings, but nothing serious right now. Finally, we have this." He reached over and tapped the large skull on the map after tapping at the blue crosses, telling me they were monster encounters, I glanced at it as I noted I was apparently in Overlord 2, the name being a dead-ringer from what I could remember.

"3 days ago, me and the boys were doing a nighttime patrol for any Empire forces that were trying to sneak onto the Island under darkness. Instead, we saw a different force coming at us. A pair of Dragons, a mated pair of Red Dragons to be exact." Many grimaced at that as I joined them. I remembered them, both from my memories of the Overlord CYOA and from this life, Red Dragons were aggressive as all hell, volatile and highly dangerous with Firebreath that could melt stone if given enough time. "The 2 of them were carrying what looked like a massive sack in their claws, probably their collective Horde, and headed for Mt. Ashbane, looked like they made a hole for themselves near the top of it, just by what looked like a Lava waterfall, if you can believe it." I nodded in thanks to him as he took a step back at that, bowing with his right fist over his heart.

"Thank you for the information, Fergis. Does anyone else have anything to report?" I asked as a few stepped forwards, starting with a 6 foot 8 man in heavy silver plate-mail armor with a sword by his hip, his hand resting on it as his head was almost shaved and his expression was made of stone.

"Nothing of importance, My Lord, the New Recruits for both the Guard and Knights are coming along, by the end of next week, we should have finished the basics with them and we'll be able to field them. That should give you a total of 150 footman, 30 Knights and 15 Archers to command. My Lord." Came the report from Gallias, the Master-at-Arms, the head of my total military that was focused on a head to head fight. I nodded as the next man stepped up, 6 foot 10 of solid armor, he was wearing a helmet with only his eyes visible through 2 vertical slits and his heavy, black Plate-mail chinked with every step, a thick cloak covering his body as his voice boomed like thunder.

"Your Black Knights now total at 30 strong, My Lord. My sister, Gwendaline, is seeing to those that survive the initial training, but hardening them will take time, we expect to be able to double our numbers within the next month, but that is only if we maintain a supply of similar, or better, quality recruits." Maxximus stated simply as he stepped back. I nodded thoughtfully at that, noting the difference between the Black Knights and normal Knights. Normal Knights are meant to be Shock Troopers, at the front of an army and wearing heavy armor, they fought for glory, honor and all that, sure, my Knights were more pragmatic than that, but they still prefered a straight-up fight with as little foul play as possible, something that I didn't mind given the skill that they were trained with to offset the lack of numbers. Black Knights, on the other hand, they were the opposite, they worked solely within groups of other Black Knights to deal with enemies in whatever way was needed, with them, the Ends very much justified the Means, a few of them were even learning a bit of Magic on the side to give them a Force multiplier for battle.

"Nothing has really come up, My Lord. Myself and your other Magicals have been spending our time refining our craft while looking for ways to break the Blockade." Spoke the next person along, a tall woman of 6 foot 3 wearing a green dress that went down to her ankles. The dress itself was segmented with plates of leather that were inscribed with Runes around the edges and I knew that they had been soaked in Blood to empower them. The front of the dress reached up to the woman's neck and was backless, showing off her back muscles while a cut went down the middle of her chest, showing off her massive bust as the dress wrapped around her neck. Her face was a definition of beauty with small, green snake scales climbing the base of her jaw while her hair seemed to have been replaced with green Snake tails, her eyes also being slitted and I knew that her tongue was the same, even though her other features were beautiful and lacking any flaw. Her name was Ker'la, she was the Court Witch as it were and one in charge of my other Magic Users, including the Cultists that I had running around.

"I will admit that I have had to talk with more than a few of the younger initiates about the method of breaking it since more than a few had voiced the idea of just unleashing a number of Water Elementals on the ships, maybe even summoning a Water-based Demon of some kind to kill the ships and Bind it to the Island as a Guard dog. It seems that some of them simply lack the experience to know that such undertakings would take time, especially since we only have 3 Elementalists, all 3 of which being Geokinetics." I nodded at Ker'la, knowing what she was talking about as the final person of the group present stepped forwards.

She was lithe with a well muscled build wearing what looked like a long-sleeved jacket that barely made it passed her generous bust that was being contained by a leather, strapless bra while she wore a belt with a loincloth coming down from it at the front and back in lieu of trousers, a heavy pair of boots on her feet. All of it was black, worn and looked like it had been in use for a long time, the boots having had heavy metal plates stitched on to the toes of them with plates on the forearms of her 'Jacket' as well. It was easy to see that this woman was well toned and experienced given her walk as she moved forwards, her face being smooth and lacking any flaw with high cheekbones, narrow nose and her sleek, silver hair tied back into a bun with what looked like a razor-edged crescent holding it in place. However, besides her eyes, her most prominent feature were her ears, extending at least a good 10 cm out from her heat and pointed at the end, still, she was easily the biggest person present at just under 7 foot.

"Nothin' really to say, My Lord. The Empire took our guys by surprise when they first came, caught our ships in the open and sunk them before we knew what was going on. We've rebuilt since then, got a Merchant ship, 2 Warships and 2 Raiders with another 4 Landers on the way once the Craftsmen finish making the planks in the mills, there all just waiting in Rockshelf Cove." She stated, her name being Tal'den, she was the leader of my Cutthroats and Bandits from before the Empire showed up and her Sister being the second in command, both of them being my Pirate Captains and worked with the Bandit Leaders to sort out raids, keeping most of their stuff tucked away in Rockshelf Cove for when it was need. Rockshelf Cove itself was one of a number of hidden docks that had access to the ocean through an enchanted door that allowed it to project a solid illusion of the cliff face around the outer edge of the Island. It was perfect for hiding the ships in.

I nodded with that as the meeting continued, I spent the time hearing what the others had to say, it wasn't really anything major right now, just little things to keep me up to speed on everything as I focused on it all. Most of the Workers, Blacksmiths and Beast Masters worked through my Priestess, she would then tell me of any problems if they came up while my Spymasters were not present for the simple reason that they were not needed. The 2 of them, being brother and sister, were off training a bunch of spies for infiltration into the Empire, working with a few witches to ensure that they wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. The Merchant was mostly working within the city, keeping an inventory of everything and making sure that things were running smoothly while the Guardsmen were mostly running drills. My Cult was mostly keeping the peace as they continued to worship me as one thing or another, my Priestess seemingly only a few steps behind me throughout the meeting before it ended, some hours later after the reports were finished, leaving me much to think about as I got my first, good, look around the room.

The room itself was large, high ceilinged and made of angled, black stone that extended from the ground to the ceiling to form a ridcage-like pattern while beams of solid stone hung down the middle of the length of the room, from which, multiple chandeliers hung to provide light from glowing crystals. A set of massive Steel doors lead into the room, inscribed with massively complex runes forming added protection on top of what must have been at least 50 cm of solid steel with at least 9 dead-bolts in each side of both doors. To the left of the doors, half way up the room, was a throne that was 10 steps above the ground, padded in leather and made from more steel and stone with a polished finish that made it seem like solid obsidian, a small wall separating it from the leading doors so that an Assassin wouldn't have a straight shot at me. I was further to the right of the Throne, standing alone at a series of tables covered in maps, paper and various tomes that listed various items from observations of the local Empire forces. There were even a few examples of weapons that the Empire had lying on another table to my left as I looked back down the room to the closed door, it was covered in a few pieces of Armor from an Empire grunt, even the staff of a Sentinel was present and in perfect condition, it's last user having died of an Arrow to the eye. Glancing behind me, I spotted the smaller doors that opened to lead to a small Balcony that overlooked the city, windows present, but reinforced by hidden Runic arrays like the ones on the doors and walls, allowing me to see the underground city with ease as I walked over and out, on to the Balcony.

The City was made of stone and steel, buildings being built like blocks with each block being placed on top of another, corridors being created as the houses seen formed into spires as they climbed towards the roof of the cavern a good few hundred metres above my head. All of these being made from the same black stone and also being made with heavy defences around the base of each growing spire, turning each of them into miniature fortresses in their own right, it was an effective design with little between each spire beyond a few paths, workshops, Blacksmiths, and mines, keep the raw materials and production separate from the housing to prevent problems, all being easily defendable with the terrain working against attacks. The tunnels leading into the cavern I was in were all at the bottom of a downhill slope with jagged rocks working against them, pointing up hill and making it impossible to see what hid under them until you walked passed them, meaning that a trap could be hidden under the shadow of every rock. Guard towers also dominated the final stretch between the spires and the cavern entrances, each of which having multiple Archers positioned on it with Ballistas, Primitive muzzle loading Cannons firing cast Iron balls filled with Black Powder and more than a few Catapults that threw what looked like Stone Octahedron with Runes carved in each side and designed to trigger blasts of elemental energy on impact from blasts of intense flame to flash freezing the surroundings in an instant.

The Palace itself stood separate from the Spires and the rest, however, built into the wall of the cavern and the front looking like a massive gate, it was impossible to take with only a single entrance and the surrounding rock having been fortified to an extreme so that digging through it was next to impossible. Even more Guard stations were positioned around the main gate with multiple backup positioned hidden by reinforced blast shields that could be lowered at a moment to reveal turreted Ballistas, Catapults or tri-mounted cannons.

Darklight was like a series of fortresses located within one massive Fortress, within a Labyrinth that was nearly impossible to attack, let alone lay siege to since logistics into the tunnels was nearly impossible since enemies would simply get lost. Of course, that was without considering the various deadly and dangerous local creatures that had long since been domesticated, they were only being kept in check by the various Beast Masters, I smirked at that thought.

 _You know, you mentioned that you wouldn't have your people breaking the Blockade. You never mentioned anything about me breaking the Blockade? Why is that, thinking that you could get me to just smash it wide open?_ I suddenly heard as the silence stretched. I knew that no one was around me as the voice was not coming through the air, smooth as silk and carrying a seductive edge to it that sent a chill up and down my spine as I felt a memory flash through my head.

 _"No. The Empire already knows that we have Magic Users present here due to those damned Sentinels, the moment that they see a Dragon, let alone a Black one, I highly doubt they wouldn't sent reinforcements to try and catch, or kill, you. They want Magic Users purged, and your a pretty damned powerful one yourself, Hana."_ I replied mentally as the voice spoke in my mind. I felt something wrapping around my waist as arms slide over my shoulders, I glanced to my right to see scaled arms wrapping around my shoulders as a black scaled tail came around my waist.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Who can tell with those Hypocrites given that their 'Sentinels' are Magic Users themselves, not to mention the fact that those mated Red Dragons are still sitting in Ashbane, what's to say that the Empire doesn't see them and simply sends reinforcements to deal with them rather than me?" Hana asked, her voice whispering in in my ear as I felt her long as hell tongue flick against my right ear, her arms tightening around me.

"True, but a Black Dragon is something that they rate a hell of a lot more dangerous than a Red one, Reds are aggressive, yes, but if you stay out of their way, they generally are harmless unless provoked first. I'm pretty sure you should know that from the information that the Coven managed to drag out of that last Sentinel that the Hunters captured, they apparently view Red dragons the same way as a Volcano, stay the hell away and ignore it and nothing will happen. Black Dragons on the other hand..." I left it hanging as I heard her groan behind me, her tail and arms letting go as I turned to face Hana.

Hana was tall, standing at 7 foot 1, with the figure of a goddess to match. Her body was covered in scales forming into what looked like a One-piece strapless, backless swimming suit that barely concealed her bust that, frankly, was just insane in size. Her arms from the elbow down were scaled and covered in thick plates and spikes while her fingers ended with razor sharp claws that she could retract for delicate work, her legs were similar with thick plates and black scales from the knees down. However, instead of legs like a Human, she had digitigrade ending in massive talons with the largest toe hovering above the ground like the striking toes of a Raptor. To add to this, 2 massive pylons came from her back, forming a massive set of wings that were tucked behind her as her tail lay by her legs, the wings being larger than I was with a wingspan that was over 6 m from tip to tip in her Dragonborn form while her tail could extend to over 5 m at will. Finally, Hana's face was much like Tal'den's, the definition of beauty with high cheeks, angelic features and long, brown hair that almost shined in the lighting of the cavern, she had 2 horns sweeping back from just above her temples, however. Along with that, the bottom of her jaw, back and sides of her neck were covered in black scales with a few more circling her serpent-like eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness as slithers of silver on a black background. Lastly, I saw her tongue slipping out of her mouth, I knew the damn thing was over half a metre long and tipped with one hell of a barb.

"Fair enough, you've made your point, Corvus. I go out and try breaking the Blockade and the Empire pulls in more grunts to try and crush Darklight." She sighed at that as I nodded.

"Don't worry, I have a plan. It will just take some time to pull off." I stated simply with a grin as she looked back at me with a smirk, taking a step to my side and wrapping an arm around me, her tail going around my waist in an instant as she smirked more, looking down at me.

"Tell me more..." She purred with a glint in her eye. I shivered at that, Black Dragons all obsessed over one thing or another, not stopping until the object, or objects, of their interest were theirs, it looked like whoever put me here had a shit sense of humor as Hana seemed to be obsessed with me.

 **XXX**

I'll admit, suddenly going from a Uni student to an Overlord was not an easy shift to make, but I think I did fairly well in coming to terms with the turn my life had taken. Still, just going around and seeing everything was really worth it since, even with the memories, this new world was truly something else. However, besides doing a bit of sightseeing, I was doing work as to solve the problem of the Blockade on the Island, mainly via working through Alchemy and looking into my options for Magic, such as Enchanting, Elementalism and Golemshop. I was rather thankful for the fact I had taken 'Study' when I first got here since it helped my learning curve greatly as I divided my time with the separate tasks that I had along with talking with a few of the others.

Elementalism was my main focus for the time being, specifically on Water rather than any of the other elements since that was the one that was needed most right now. Still, progress, even with Study, was slow and I was only just grasping the basics of manipulating Water after a few weeks of tireless practise while I studied other subjects as well to get the most out of my time and energy. I talked with Ker'la often, she had more than a few fields of experience that she had mastered in terms of Magic, more than just my own skills as I talked with her about the possibilities of making a Gateway of a kind. Sure, the Witch had experience making Gates to other realms like Hell or Limbo to make deals with Demons or gather lost souls for rituals, but the idea of making a portal to travel from one point to another within the same realm seemed like a novelty to her. Yes, I could have opened a portal with my Shadow Bending, but that was tiring for me, and exceptionally so the further the portal travelled and the number of people that were transported, hence why Ker'la was looking into an Enchanted Stone arch inscribed with Runes and empowered by either a blood sacrifice or burning a few dozen souls gathered from Limbo, either worked.

Alchemy was rather useful as I used it every chance I got to experiment with things. I was one of those guys that was constantly curious about stuff and looked it up on the Internet if given half the chance, the fact that I remembered a lot of it was also useful as I remembered what I had read about things, one such thing being C4. I'll admit, the thought of sending swimmers to strap time-delayed C4 charges to bottoms of numerous Imperial ships was a strong one, especially since I knew that the Imperials stored barrels of Black powder at the bottom of their ships, but I also knew the consequences of doing that. Suddenly destroying an entire Imperial fleet in a single night was a bad thing since it meant that I'd draw more attention to the Island, especially since I also knew that the Empire had fast boats that came and went every 3rd week to pick up and drop off reports and orders. If I took them out and the boar returned, then it was only going to lead to more trouble as a bigger force might be diverted to the Island, which was actually named Crescent-Morn.

No, my plan was to cause trouble for the Empire, but not directly. I was going to wait for Ker'la to finish her work on the Gateway before using it to transport my Bandits to the mainland and begin harassing the various towns belonging to the Imperials around their lands. It would draw attention away from the Island and would cause the Empire to redeploy forces in such a way as to cover their towns as I would motion for the Bandits to go for Night-time Raids, attacks on caravans travelling along roads, and occasionally doing more large scale things such as sneaking into and planting explosives inside of Imperial fortifications. But still, that was only a part of what I had planned, I was already thinking up ideas for a submersible craft that I could give to the Pirates under my command as a means of harassing the sea-born Imperials and cause them more problems via sinking supply ships along with the occasional warship. The whole idea being that I would need to draw them away from Crescent-Morn, eventually trying to convince them that it was simply not worth expending resources on a location that wasn't providing anything in return. Yes, that would be difficult given the sheer amount of land and might the Empire had, but it was not impossible.

However, after 2 weeks, I decided that I would mention something to my Priestess, at least about my plan... And possibly about my past life...

 **XXX**

"You called for me, My Lord?" Heran asked as she stepped into the room, giving a half bow as I looked up from the book I was reading, a tome I had taken from my extensive library within the Palace, this one being about Elementalism and focused heavily on water as I held an orb of said classical element in my free hand as I leaned back in a chair. Around me was my Workshop, covered in tables, bookshelves and various papers with half-finished alchemical arrays and numerous calculations as well as half finished circles on the floor, a Demonic ritual circle off to one side of the room and plenty of tools dotted around the large room that was built into the heart of the Palace, though slightly off to the side so that experiments didn't bring the entire place down. I smiled slightly at that as I turned to address Heran, dismissing the water in my hand, causing it to drop into a formerly empty bucket that I had by my feet before I laid the book down at the page I was at.

"Yes, Heran. I called you here to talk, as I have much I wish to discuss with you." I stated simply as I gestured for her to take a seat opposite me. Silence followed for a moment before I continued after collecting my thoughts, though I decided to start with the simple things first.

"Tell me, Heran, what do you think of the plan that I'm working on? I mean, your personal opinion of it." I stated as she nodded.

"While I can't say I understand it, My Lord, I do question the wisdom of sending your forces so far afield from the Island when they could be used to break the Blockade easily enough. Forgive me for being presumptuous, My Lord, but you have the power to wipe the entire Blockade out in an instant if you so wish, yet you restrain yourself from doing so. I will admit that this is something that all your servants have been thinking of." I nodded at that, knowing that they might have been confused by a few things.

"Understandable. I'll admit that what I'm doing is slightly unusual since it slips our forces, but the whole point of it is to break the Blockade, however, it will not be through direct combat, but through indirect force projection." I explained as she looked at me with interest, leaning forwards slightly as I started. "The Empire, while vast and well funded with Gold and resources, can only field so many soldiers at a given time, if they want to field a formation of Legionnaires in a given area, then they must redeploy those forces. As such, if they concentrate forces in one point, that will leave other areas either with only a token Garrison or lacking a Garrison altogether. This Blockade could be seen as a similar situation, hence why I'm having Ker'la working on the Gate for the Bandits along with a gift for Tal'den to allow her and her crews to get back to harassing the Empire's supply lines." I smiled at Heran as I saw her cup her chin in thought before I saw her eyes widened in comprehension and understanding.

"So, your plan isn't to break the Blockade, My Lord, but to make it seem too costly to just leave such a concentration of soldiers in a single area that is seeing next to no active use beyond blocking the path to an Island that clearly doesn't need any active trade to function fully." She stated in a matter of fact way as I nodded, regardless of the fact it wasn't a question, she smirked at that. "Truly, it is a stroke of genius, My Lord." I smiled slightly at that, enjoying the ego rubbing at that.

"Thank you, Heran. However, discussing my plan with you so that you could tell the others was not the only reason that I called you here." I stated as I regarded her for a moment. "Tell me, what do you know on the subject of reincarnation or past lives?" I asked as I saw her face scrunch up in thought for a moment.

"I'm afraid I know little on the subject beyond what I might infer from the names, My Lord." She replied after a moment of silence. I nodded with that, materials on the subject were actually rather hard to come by, my own Library only having a select few of them for the time being and all of them just inferred the same things about the subject but added a few personal opinions of the authors as well.

"Again, that is understandable since there is actually very little on the subject, all things told." I noted as I continued on. "To put it simply, a Past life is a life that you have lived before dying and moving on to either some kind of afterlife or been reincarnated into a new life after having the past life being locked away or erased to ensure that you don't remember it. However, exceptions are present that do remember their past lives, and about a week ago, I became one such exception." I stated simply as Heran looked shocked at that.

"My Lord? You mean that... That you remember another life that you may have lived?" She asked, curious and shocked at that. I nodded.

"Yes, though 'Past' is only the correct term for the last life I lived in terms that I lived it before my current life. If I went by how advanced the people were in my last lifetime, then it might need a new name since the people in my last life were staggeringly more advanced than the people of this world." I explained as Heran leaned forwards in interest.

"How so, My Lord?" She asked, growing curious, I could easily hear her thoughts on the matter as she was wondering what kind of secrets that I knew and what they would do to enhance my power, hell, I could even feel the religious fanaticism growing in her.

"Well... The people of my past life were all Humans, Elves, Orcs, Ogres and other Magical beings, or Magic itself, was nothing more than a fantasy to them. Alchemy did exist, but it was considered an early and very crude version of what they called 'Science', though, they lacked the ability to transmute one material into another, but that didn't stop them. They built massive cities made of glass and steel with towers rising from the ground, and in some cities, rising above the clouds themselves. Weapons like Swords, Maces and Bows and Arrows were all considered as being impractical on the battlefield as soldiers often went to war with weapons that were similar to miniature Cannons, but scaled down to the size that a single soldier could carry one in a similar manner to a Repeating crossbow." I explained simply as I continued on for a time, explaining a few of the things I knew, going into detail for certain things like weapons and armor, not to mention a bit about medicine and the like, by the end of which, Heran was overwhelmed by the sheer difference between my past life and this one, and how different war was, though I did explain that I was planning to build a few things to help against the Empire. Yes, such things would take time, but they were coming along as I researched more on the subjects.

It was all just a matter of time.

 **AN: Hope you enjoyed this and please tell me what you thought in the Reviews.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing and this is purely for recreational purposes**

 **AN: Here is Chapter 2, hope you enjoy.**

Turns out, it would take me another 2 weeks to get up to an acceptable level of my needed skills for me to do something about my Pirates and allowing them to get back to the seas to cause trouble for the Empire. The Bandits had already left in 2 groups and each Bandit leader, a pair of Brothers called Dalvin and Dredge, had been given a special necklace that acted as a mixture of a beacon and key to allow a portal to be opened at their location at will, it being tied to their blood so that only they could open it when they wished to. Both groups had already left by the end of the first week and came back every 3 days with loot that they had stolen from Imperial towns and caravans running between said towns. It was rather interesting to note that the Bandits were also using the Portals as a means of travelling fast from place to place, often only staying in an area for 3 days to carry out a number of attacks before moving on, though they did plan to return to a few places here and there.

However, this was not the reason that I was currently in Rockcliff Cove as I looked at my creation as it lay in a new dock I had commissioned for it. The massive craft was a solid piece of Metal work with a smooth, curved design that, frankly, made me think that I had created a Reaper from Mass Effect but lacking the various legs, though. The hull itself was made from steel coated in water-resistant blue paint that was patterned to allow it to disappear into the sea and be difficult to see even while it is close to the surface of the water. The craft was built as a submarine, lacking a propeller and, instead, used a bit of basic Enchanting and Water Elementalism to propel the craft through the water at any depth as well as preventing it from being crushed at deeper depths.

From end to end, the sub was just over 25 m long from stem to stern and 7 m wide at the widest point, the entire thing was a good bit bigger than Imperial ships that were around since the biggest one that I could remember in the fleet around the Island was over 17 m long and 5 m wide at the very least, built like a Viking Longship, but with a higher deck and could have multiple archers on it. On top of the hull, it was easy to see a number of hatches that were present, one of which being for crew while the other 2 were for different reasons. The first one for a periscope with an optical zoom feature that could be used from over 10 m underwater and could easily pick up details from a long way away, even allowing the crew to navigate via star light thanks to a secondary lens on the top of it that looked to the sky. The other hatch was for an extendable hose that could be released from under 25 m below the waves and was used to refill the air tanks within the ship, tanks which could last for up to 4 days with ease, though that depended on the size of the crew since I went by how large the crew of the Raiders were for measurements.

Lastly, I smirked at the ship as I considered that, while it looked defenceless, it was anything but toothless. The ship carried 4 Harpoon launchers at the front of the ship, mounted into retractable housings and propelled by small explosive charges of Gunpowder in a waterproof casing similar to a Blank in a Firearm. Each Harpoon could easily punch through the hull of an Imperial ship from 40 m away, and given that they unfolded to rip hulls open and the speed that the craft could move at, it would probably snap ships in half as it dragged them into the depths. Added to this was the addition of a small Sea mine launcher that worked by detonating on contact with the hulls of enemy ships, it was potent given that the damn thing held at least a kilo of C4 in each of the Mines, with the sub holding a total of 60 of them in total. Finally, the sub had at least 3 deck guns in the form of a pair of tri-mounted cannons that I had upgraded to use paper-wrapped ammo with a proper Bullet-like shell to improve accuracy and reload speed, plus a single Ballista firing what amounted to Impact-triggered explosives.

I smiled as I turned from admiring my creation at the sound of feet moving around behind me. I turned to see Tal'den leading her crew of 48 people towards my ship, I smirked as I noted the interested thoughts and slight whispering going on between the members of the crew before I walked over to them with a smile as I saw the dumbfounded look on Tal'den's face.

"What do you think of your new ship, Tal'den?" I asked curiously as I didn't bother to hide my amusement.

"It is certainly impressive, My Lord, though I gotta ask, what is it exactly?" She asked as I smirked.

"It is a type of vessel called a Submarine. Think of it as a ship that is just as capable of moving through the seas as it is at moving below the waves, allowing it to hide in wait for a target without being noticed." I stated simply as Tal'den took in the simplified explanation.

"I assume that it is something you remember from your past life, My Lord?" She questioned as I nodded at that with ease.

"Yep. In my Past life, the people using these had managed to get them to the point that they could hide hundreds of metres under water, this one would be lucky to make it to over 80 m below the surface of the water." I stated simply as she nodded.

"Impressive, though, if they were that good at hiding, then how did they counter these 'Submarines'?" She asked as I smiled, this was why I liked the people that I had been given, even though they were loyal, they still questioned things, always looking for information to better understand something.

"A variety of means ranging from nets over the entrance of certain harbours to explosive barrels that would explode to crack the hull of submarines while they hid under water, and a few other things like that, all without a single piece of magic." I stated simply as she nodded in interest at the concept before I clapped my hands together, drawing the crowds attention back to me as more than a few of them looked to a metal ramp that went into the airlock of the ship.

"Alright everyone! Listen up!" I shouted. "Before you get back on the high seas, I'm going to be going over all the features of your new craft, explaining to you how they work, how to maintain them and how to use this new ship so that you, at least, know the basics before you learn from experience for the rest of it. This will take at least a week, but after that, you can go and loot and pillage Imperial Merchant coveys to your hearts' content. Along with that, I'll be giving your Captain a Portal key like with Delvin and Dredge so that you can resupply while at sea with ease every few days if you wish. Now, let's get to work!"

 **XXX**

Like I said, it took the better part of a week to teach the already experienced crew what to do in terms of controlling the Sub and how to use it. Controlling it was something that Tal'den had chosen to do herself most of the time for her ship, now named _Ravager_ , but everyone on the crew had experience of doing it as I made sure since it was an interesting system. It basically took advantage of Water elementalism and projected a high quality image of the water around the ship into the helmsman's head, like a 3rd person view and showed ships, including the sub, as highly detailed hollows. These hollows would allow them to easily manoeuvre around rocks, large creatures and other boats with ease while making life hell for the Empire. Combined with the way the engine worked, it was going to be virtually impossible to catch this ship given how fast it could move and how nimble it was.

Another addition was the use of specially made Dive Suits. These armored suits used miniature versions of both the Navigation and Engine systems of the _Ravager_ to allow the crewmen to leave the sub through the airlocks to board enemy ships. Though, I did make sure that the Navigation system could be turned off outside of water since it was less effective with the water in the air than in the sea, with a maximum range of just under a quarter that of the one on the sub, less than 50 m. These suits themselves looked similar to the SpecOps Sneakers from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though they tended to use a mixture of swords and daggers with the odd Axe mixed in, but they all agreed that the additional armor was rather nice. Hell, Tal'den even kissed me when I finished giving her the training on the new ship she had, something that had gotten more than a bit of jealousy from Hana, who had been hiding in the shadows all the while.

Aside from that, I spent my time getting better at my different forms of Magic as I started adding other things on top of that, practising with my Form changing being one such thing, though it was really more like Alex Mercer/Blacklight style Shapeshifting to be honest, but without the hunger to consume everyone and only needing a small sample of blood. Still, it had it's uses as I was actively improving with every sample of blood that I gained from the various slaves that were taken by the Bandits, each of them usually sending through a couple dozen people that had been captured and turned into slaves every few days, usually between 20 to 50 people in chains coming through the Portals at a given time. All of which were then taken to barracks to be kept and only really used for experiments by the Witches to make Demon deals for forbidden knowledge about various arts that the Witches then recorded and placed into the Library for later use. Already, that had revealed a number of interesting things including a few tomes on Necromancy, Golemshop and Enchanting that I had found rather interesting to look through.

Along with this, Darklight had a number of Alchemists present that had been trained by the Witches, yes, they only knew the basics, but they were quickly making up the difference with visits to my Library and through experimentation on the Slaves that had been captured. Usually, they worked to make new potions, poisons and elixirs to do different things, but some of them were more interested in some ideas I had given them, namely for those of Splicing, Cybernetics and Genetic modification and Engineering. The end result of that was the new Alchemists using their knowledge to modify the Slaves and seeing what methods of augmentations worked and which didn't, often recording the results and side-effects of the processes with clinical detachment to their screams of mercy. All of it resulted in a rather healthy Transhumanist-like movement among the Alchemists that seemed to be very interested in the concept, still, I nudged them more towards genetic augmentations than cybernetic ones since the former could be integrated into DNA and be transferred on to the next generations while Cybernetic stuff would mainly be used to replace lost limbs. Still, so far, the only results had been more in line with mindless berserkers that were little use beyond being unleashed in the general direction of an enemy and watching the show as body parts started flying.

Regardless, technology was advancing rapidly as the Alchemists took my lessons onboard and ran with them, some of them had already started playing around with the elements that I had given them after I copied out a Periodic table for them, alongside all the properties of the elements of interest. Not only that, but the numerous physics equations and chemical terms that I had given them were being thrown around like mad as the Alchemists started to want to know more about the world around them. The group of 15 fanatically loyal, Cultist Alchemists were something to be feared by the enemy, something that only grew worse when the Hunters had failed to stop the Empire gaining a foothold on the Island in the swampy marshes at the bottom of the Island, rather close to the active volcanos and within spitting distance of the Horde made by the 2, mated Red Dragons.

They had first made landfall less than 2 weeks ago, but had been hampered at every turn by the Hunters, Rangers, local wildlife, the various Orcs that lived out by Mt. Heavenshaker, the smallest Volcano that was by the eastern tip of the main Crescent and on the other side of the final volcano that separated them from Ashbane, where the Dragons lived. Thrown into this was the fact that the Dryad was really unhappy with their attempts to expand and was throwing these operations into utter chaos at every step was only icing on the cake. Still, Hunters were moving around and causing problems for the soldiers, usually by poisoning foods, water supplies they gathered and making it as difficult as possible for them to move around as they could, sometimes grabbing at least 3 or 4 members of any Legionnaire petrol that strayed too far from their camp on the beach. That the Magic Using Cultists had thrown their lot in as well and were starting to cause problems for the Imperials was just kicking them while they were down, usually by creating mini-earthquakes that knocked tents down and broke open crates of food and drink, sometimes having said supplies being devoured by the land before the rifts being closed to make it look like the food had just disappeared. I still laughed at the thought as the Imperials hadn't been able to move further inland than the edge of the beaches.

Hell, the fat General and the 'Governor' of what was to be an Imperial outpost had yet to leave a heavily fortified tent that was covered in thick wooden walls and had guards around it at all times. It was actually rather funny with that since they believed that they were safe.

Fergis had taken that as a challenge and had left an Arrow inside the tent pining a single piece of paper to the main column of the tent with a single word on it.

Leave.

The sheer chaos that came of that was worth it.

 **XXX**

"They do not know how to respect the land." I heard from my right as I stood on a cliff edge by a cave entrance, this particular one being near the top of the Mountain over Darklight, it was also one of the main overlook points for the Imperial camp as I could easily make out everyone present as I looked at the Soldiers running around like headless chickens, trying, and failing rather amazingly, to chop down a few trees as they were being swarmed by Orcs. I smirked at that as I glanced to my right to see my guest as I felt Hana's presence at the back of my mind, hanging back in the shadows of the cave entrance.

"The Empire only cares for the riches of the land, not how to respect it or care for it without poisoning it in the process with filth." I confirmed to the person next to me. A tall being that looked like a woman covered in vines that formed into clothes and made up her body, roots forming into a dress of sorts as the grass around us seemed to grow faster in her presence as branches came from her back and flowers seemed to dot her hair. In her hand was a Bow that looked like it was covered in moss, though I didn't see any kind of quiver of arrows on her, not that it mattered given that a Dryad could grow her own arrows from her body, this one being a rather powerful one at that with the figure of a goddess as she stood by me.

"It is clear that they are here for all of us, along with the bounty of the land, yet you allow them to remain. Why is that, Darkborn Lord?" She asked, using her name for those born inf Darklight as she glared at the camp in the distance. I shrugged slightly as I kept my hand on my sword, mostly out of habit more than anything as I glanced down at them once more.

"Mostly because forcing them to leave would only cause more to come. The way they think is that if a local people fight to defend their land, then they must have something worth taking, active combat would only draw them in and entice them, swelling their greed and lust for riches that are not theirs to take. By simply resisting them and making it harder for them, we are not giving them a good enough reason to send more of their soldiers to this Island. I'm sure you've noticed how they have less boats in the Blockade than they once did, that is because I've had others causing problems for them elsewhere, drawing them away and making sure that they know stay away." I explained. "Simply put, the aim is not to drive them away only for more of them to come back due to greed, but to show them that either it isn't worth the waste in resources to remain or that it even though it might be worth it, they simply need their forces somewhere else." The Dryad humm'd to herself at that before nodding at that.

"A wise and well thought out plan, Darkborn, but the damage that they have done to my forest is still present. How do you plan to fix that?" She asked sharply.

"We still have a vast collection of seeds and seedlings that we keep in Darklight as a way to prevent ourselves from running low when we harvest wood from your forest, once they leave, we'll use them to replant the areas that they destroyed and I'll have some Alchemists cleaning up any other messes." I countered with a half shrug before my eyes moved to Ashbane. "However, that still leaves the other problems..."

"Indeed. The Orcs have been causing problems, destroying parts of my forest and drawing the Greedborn into large fights within the roots of my forest. The Red Drakes are another, one that you seek to actively remove." That last part was aimed at me more than anything, I nodded in response.

"Yes, the Red Dragons are something that I want to remove before they become a problem. Hana mentioned that we've got at least 5 months before they begin actively trying to purge the Island and claiming it as theirs. I intent to eliminate the Imperials as a problem before that before killing the Dragons before they become a problem." I stated simply as I noted the look from the Dryad. "I'll personally help replant any damage done. You've been good to my people, Dryad, for over 15 generations, I'd say that we should do our part to pay you back for any damages done, at least, if you want to accept the help." I noted a raised eyebrow at that as I smiled slightly.

"And why would I want your help, Darkborn?" She asked, the question could have been mistaken for a scathing tone of annoyance and anger easily, but I had enough experience, via my new memories to know that it was more curious as with the slight tilt to the head. I smiled at that.

"No one is an Island." I stated simply as I nodded and left her alone, returning back to the cave easily enough.

 **XXX**

"So, what exactly are we doing up here, My Lord?" Fergis asked as he surveyed the area, looking for possible Orcs or Imperials, though he doubted that either would be present as he kept the bag that his Lord was carrying in his sights from the corner of his eye. While not widely known, the Lord of Darklight was known to have a Past life by those within his Inner circle, himself being one of those that knew and was rather glad for it given that devises and ideas that the Lord was coming out with on a near daily basis. The Submarines that the Pirates were using was something that many thought were impressive along with the new Paper ammo that was being used by the Cannons throughout Darklight, they made reloading easier. Now, Fergis and a group of Hunters had been pulled along to test out a new invention that the Lord had come up with and most of them were raring to have a shot on whatever was in the large bag that was draped over his back.

"Just a few things that I figured that you and your Hunters might enjoy to make your lives a bit easier." He stated simply as they exited the Tunnel and into a clearing that stood near the base of the mountain, a rather difficult to get to place as the Dryad had closed it off with thick roots, thick, thorny vines and numerous trees that acted like a solid barrier against any kind of attack as the trees were so heavily clustered to make advancing impossible. For that reason, the area was often used as a Training area for Knights, Black Knights and Hunters that needed experience above ground as well as below ground, perfect for testing whatever new invention that the Lord had come up with as he placed the bag on a wooden table in the middle of the clearing before opening it and pulling something out. Seeming to know that all eyes were on him, he clicked something on the grip of the device and they watched it unfold into a bow.

It was strange, Fergis would admit. It was made from metal and some kind of light, black material with a rough grip to prevent it slipping while the bow string was passed between the 2 ends of the Bow at least twice with wheels on either side and the strong being connected to hinged pieces that were mounted on cylinders for some reason. Looking at the Bow, Fergis noticed a few switches located on the grip as well, at least 2 of them, one no doubt being to fold the device up, though the other one was only marked by 3 columns that went from the smallest to the tallest. Seeing the Rangers look, the Lord explained as others listened.

"It's called a Compound Bow. The whole idea of it was to provide much greater strength when compared to a normal Bow, or Longbow, and allows for greater ease of use within a confined space, like a jungle or forest, however, this is slightly offset by the fact that it's a bit heavier than a normal bow." He stated as he handed Fergis the bow, the Ranger taking it and instantly noting the difference in weight as it was at least 1.5 times as heavy as his normal bow made from solid Oak that the Dryad had gifted to him and his Hunters. It took him a moment to get used to the rough grip and the slightly different balance of the bow before he glanced at the Lord.

"Care to walk me through it, My Lord?" He asked, knowing the the Lord was not one to look down on such a causal address, even before he learned of his past life. Said Lord nodded with ease.

"The system is spring loaded with an active resistance built in. 3 settings for the Draw weight with the lowest being best for quick loading and shooting, but lacking in both power and range unless you're in close quarters. Medium is average in all terms, and Heavy is slow to draw back, but it has the most power and the greatest range, a gear mechanism should allow you to cycle through these options while the folding mechanism will let you store it away or clip it to your back more easily, taking less room." He stated as Fergis notched an Arrow and quickly tried out lowest weight, it was quick and easy, much less than his own bow before firing at a target before switching to Medium, slightly more strength than his own bow being needed to pull it back, but not enough to really matter before he put it on the heaviest setting. The difference was significant as he felt the resistance as the bowstring was pulled back, but it hit the hardest, going through the 3 inch wooden target with ease and the arrow being halfway out of the back of said target, something that he couldn't help but smile at.

"Damn. When can we expect more of these beauties, My Lord?" He asked as he slipped a hand over the new Bow, already thinking about having it repainted to better hide in the jungle, not that difficult with the group of Alchemists in Darklight.

"The Alchemists should have a few dozen of them ready within the next 4 days, more than enough for your Hunters, Rangers and any future recruits for a while still. Though, I didn't come here to just test that bow." The Lord stated before going back into the bag and pulling out at least 3 more arrows, the shafts made from the same materials as the bow, light weight, but smooth and tipped with different heads. The first one being a standard Broadhead, but with 4 razor sharp blades around an armor piercing tip and seeming to carry more weight to it than most while still being usable. The next one didn't have a bladed head, as such, instead, it had some kind of capsule on the end with a grid carved into the shell and what looked like one of the impact triggers that the Lord had already made for other things, Fergis had his money on some kind of explosive. That would be fun.

The last arrow, however, was strange. It was a large capsule with 4 needles in it that seemed to be thin, but looked more like those that the Alchemists used to inject someone with a serum of some kind before the idea kicked in his mind, they were a method of delivering poison.

For the next hour, he had fun with a few others as they tested out these new arrows while the Lord took notes. The first type of arrow proved itself even better at punching through the targets as it went through the target and impacted the stone wall that was built behind them, digging into the stone work to show just how good it was at penetrating a target. The second type was even better as it exploded on impact, as they had believed, but had easily taken out everything within 2 m of the initial target, making it the arrow of choice for taking on clusters of enemies, like the phalanxes of Imperial soldiers for instant. The final type proved itself to be just as dangerous, the poison being injected into the primary target before exploding to remove the arrow and traces of the poison, wounding the target all that much more and making sure that, should he manage to recover, he would still be subject to a poison that Fergis knew would be immune to normal healing potions that circulated the mainland.

Ah, the wonders of new toys.

 **XXX**

Hana, Black Dragon and strongest of those on Crescent-Morn, glared from the darkness as she watched the object of her interest talking with the other Darklight-born Mortals. Said object happened to be the one that she was bonded with as he continued to show off his genius to the lesser Mortals and allowing them to bask in his presence, but he was her's Damnit! She would not have some random Mortals taking what belonged to her, what she had clearly marked as her's with their bond as she watched him working with the others to note down the power of the arrows and new bow that the Lord Dredd had created.

She liked him, honestly. Corvus Dredd was not a man that was willing to back down from a fight, often seeing a challenge as something needing crushed and problems as being something to overcome, the Blockade by the Empire had been a stupid move on their part as you never trapped an animal in a corner. This was even more true when it came to her Dredd as it showed that not only did he get more vicious and ruthless, he also got more _creative_. His remembrance of a Past life only made him that much more dangerous as he seemed to have a new wellspring of ideas, concepts and knowledge that surprised even her, regardless of her 3 centuries of existence before she had been awoken by him as he moved through the lower tunnels of the underground city.

Still, some of his quote were interesting, especially the ones that she had stealthily read through their link from a book called 'The art of War' by a Mortal with the odd name of 'Sun Tzu'. It was, at least according to what her Dredd knew, _the_ book to examine in regards to war and how it should be used, being required reading material for all Military forces across the world he had remembered for the better part of centuries after it had been written.

"All warfare is based on Deception, hence when we are able to attack, we must seem unable. When using our force, we must appear inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe that we are far away when far away we must make him believe we are near." The Dragoness whispered under her breath as she continued to observe her Dredd, he knew that war was more than just having the Military might and being able to project it like the 'Glorious Empire' was doing, he knew that it required skill, tactics and strategy, not to mention a dozen other things, to pull off as well as the right forces. His move to send his Bandit forces into Empire territory to raid them for supplies, resources and the ability to deny the same thing to them was inspired since they would not expect it, it would also force them to pull their forces back, something that she had seen as the Blockade had already been reduced by a 3rd in the last 4 weeks alone, with the remaining ships operating under a skeleton crew with nothing more than a few Archers on the decks. Honestly, Hana wondered why her Dredd didn't just order an attack and be done with it, but she knew he had his reasons.

If she had to guess, he was probably waiting for the time when the Blockade either was removed altogether or was little more than a token force that wouldn't be able to fight their way out of a leather backpack before launching his counter attack. Technically speaking, the Counter attack had already begun.

The Bandits had already captured massive numbers of slaves that were being either experimented on or thrown through Demon Portals for more knowledge on lost or forbidden Lore, not to mention other things like favors of powerful Demon Lords and their Forces along with the occasional piece of information gleaned from the realms of hell to gain a peek to the inner workings of the Empire. Again, another quote came to mind at that moment.

Know your enemy, and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

Again, this proved true as she had already seen it in action. Her Dredd spent any time that he wasn't inventing something, practising something or researching another thing looking through the Shadows and viewing the inner workings of the Empire, even going as far as dragging a few people through to scan their minds with his Telepathy. He had gifted at least 30 Spies with a limited form of his own Form Changing and sent them with Bandit groups to assume the lives of people in the settlements that they attacked while her lord had created over 120 Living Shadows to work as his eyes and ears within the Imperial Capital, managing to bypass the Anti-Magic Barrier via a rather simple trick of it working like a wall, once you're passed it, it can do nothing. The fact that his Shadows acted like portals made it all the easier to move them around.

As the Dragoness considered all of this, she could help the feral smirk that crossed her, currently, Mortal features. Her Dredd was already setting up a Hangmen's Noose around the neck of the Empire, the rope already in place and slowly tightening around their neck and they were none the wiser, believing their position supreme simply for the total control they had.

Hana smirked at the thought, already imagining the day when she took to the skies with Her Dredd and showed them that, no, their position was anything _but_ supreme.

Right before they were crushed beneath black scales and potent acid.

 **XXX**

It was roughly 2 and a half months after I first arrived the the Blockade was disbanded, the few Imperials that remained having either tried to swim away or merely cried in 'horror' of being trapped on an Island with the 'Magical Barbarians'. They had been dead before nightfall with the Orcs joining them soon afterwards, Fergis and his Hunters, now numbering 25 in total with Rangers included, had taken great joy in using their new toys to such an effect while backed up by Knights and Footmen to deal with the Orc settlement that was located by the foot of Heavenshaker, something that was less of a battle and more of a clean up operation with my troops moving in and slaughtering the lot of them to remove them from the Island.

That left only 1 problem to the Island as the Bandits and Pirates continued doing what they did best, pillaging and looting as my ring of spies expanded and I used Living Shadows to infiltrate the Capital of the Empire along with a few of the other, heavily guarded, major cities. Still, I needed to deal with the Mated Dragons soon as I didn't want them suddenly coming around and biting me in the ass if I left them for too long to settle in, better to hit them hard and fast while they weren't prepared, but still, I wasn't about to do that right now as I planned to stack the deck as far as I could. Hence why I had been researching so much and practising so many other things.

My skill in Enchanting had improved to the point that I could enchant my armor and weapons, engraved with Runes and empowered with both Blood and Demonic Magic to make them all the better for what I had in mind for the future. The main thing I worked on was a Force Multiplier for me as well as something to work as a distraction for the Dragons when I faced them since I disliked the idea of bringing anyone else with me since I had the best chance against them.

It took over 9 days for me to craft my armor properly along with a sword that I was happy with by folding steel hundreds of times before battering it back with about 5% carbon and around 15% manganese to make it extremely tough and durable with an extreme in terms of Anti-wearing properties. I insulated the entire thing with leather and cloth before engraving the metal with Runes once it was all hammered into shape before enhancing it further with protections against harm, specifically those of being burned, incinerated, vaporised, crushed and ripped to shreds. Finally, I had ritually empowered them through a mixture of blood Magic, via the sacrifice of 10 Slaves, and Demonic Magic, via making a few Demon deals and binding animal-like demons that had no mind of their own to my armor, giving it greater strength. This process was repeated for every piece of my armor as they all came together in the end of the 5th day of work. The end result looked rather similar to Mordred from Fate/Stay Night, though redone to fight a Male body and lacking the metal plates that formed into what looked like a dress and the other features that did so while the chest plate was solid and could have taken hits from the arrows launched by the Predator bows that I had given my Hunters with ease, and that was before I had enhanced it with Enchanting, Blood Magic and Demonic Magic. Of course, this was without going into detail of the Enchantments and empowerments that boasted my abilities beyond what I should have been capable of, even considering my enhanced capabilities given through Alchemy and Form Changing.

With armor out of the way, I had chosen to make a Sword to help me kill the Dragons. I was half tempted to recreate Clarent from Fate/Stay Night for that, but decided to go with a different design instead, this new design was that of Balmung, the massive Broadsword being enchanting with all manner of effects to give it both a Peerless blade and being virtually unbreakable while also giving it greater ability at piercing the scales of the Giant Red Dragons. I had conducted at least 12 Demonic rituals to gain the knowledge needed to create the right enchantments since such things had been lost to time, literally, all records of the enchantments had been either discarded or lost altogether thanks to some idiots like the Wizard from the first Overlord game, but happening a lot sooner than that. Still, the end result was worth it, having had to sacrifice at least 152 Slaves before I got the result that I was happy with.

But, still, armor and weapons were not the only things that I had been working on before running off to meet the Dragons. I had taken time to learn Elemental Earth and Fire over the next month along with creating a total of 15 Enchanted, Living armored suits, each of which looked like a full set of Ebony Armor from Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and all carried finely forged blades, Greatswords and Claymores mostly, that, while lacking Dragon-slaying enchantments, were more than Peerless when compared to other weapons crafted for the time. Again, this was not all I had done as I had also spent time experimenting with Alchemy in the FMA Brotherhood style to learn how to do it and to do it without constantly clapping, not to mention learning how to combine Classical Elements such as Earth and Fire.

Turns out, combining Classical Elements was possible, just difficult as it worked on a sliding scale of how much of one element you put into the mix to determine the final result. For instance, putting in more Fire than Earth into the mix gave you Lava, or Magma, while too much Earth over Fire gave you Metal, though to combine elements, you still needed to add a touch of Raw Magic to ensure that the element formed fast enough to be useful. Still, it was going to be tough.

Red Dragons were dangerous, not only because their Fires could melt steel and boil flesh in moments, but because they were aggressive, highly volatile, and some of the physically strongest Dragons around. So, while I might have complete protection against their Firebreath, I would still be vulnerable to being crushed like an empty tin can under heel.

 **XXX**

"Are you sure that you must do this alone, M'Lord? Surely you could have called the entire might of the city down on these Beasts if you but give the Command?" I heard as I walked through the tunnels leading to the far side of the Island. To my side and following behind me was my Knight, Gallias spoke as we moved along the tunnels, Hana was a step behind me on the other side, wanting to ensure that I reached the destination without harm while Heran was just behind her, both seeming to have complete faith in my abilities while Gallius was trying to get me to, at the very least, call in others to help, even recalling the Black Knights that I currently had off attacking undefended towns and villages under the banner of the Empire.

"True, I could, Gallias. However, the problem with that is that I would be risking the lives of numerous men and women that would die by an order that I knew would get the killed. We do not have the time to craft enough armor and weapons to hand to every man to be able to kill the Dragons, nor do we have the needed Magicals to do so in the allotted time frame, hence why I chose to focus on doing it myself since I have the needed experience and equipment to do this." I countered simply as Gallias shook his head ruefully, reluctantly acknowledging my point.

"Fair enough M'lord, though I did wish that you did do this yourself. No matter the glory and prestige that would come of it." I gave him a half smirk at that.

"I am simply doing my duty as Lord of Darklight, after all, if a King does not lead, then how can his subjects follow?" I asked, quoting that line from Code Geass as it did apply since, both before and after remembering my Past Life, I had lead from the front, by example. Gallias simply smirked at that, before bowing with his right hand over his heart and turning around, walking back down the tunnel to the city that I knew he was heading back to, not really that bothered by it since that meant he was going to be running more drills with the soldiers and putting the city on high alert. Heran went back with him, not saying a word as she had reached the point that she no longer voiced her faith in me, it was simply there and needed no voicing to fill the silence as I continued on with the Dragoness behind me, along with the 15 Living Armors behind me, walking in 3 rows of 5 so as to not take up the entire tunnel. The silence stretched for a moment as we came to the end of the Tunnel at the base of Ashbane, I had endured Gallias talking for that long after all, before I turned to Hana, who was looking up the Mountain.

"No final words for me before I embark on my Perilous journey?" I snarked with a smirk as Hana smirked at me for that, she said nothing over either the bond or through the air before she _moved_. Her tail wrapped around my waist and yanked me to her as she grabbed my head with clawed hands as my eyes widened in surprise as she slammed her lips into mine before I felt her tongue shoot into my mouth. Her tongue literally rubbed over everything before I felt it try to slip down my throat for a moment before pulling back, the barbed end tracing lightly over my tongue in a way that send shivers down my spine as she pulled back, leaving me in a drunken stupor as she smirked at that. As I was coming down from that high, Hana smirked at me before winking and walking off, back down the tunnel, her hips swaying seductively with each step, her tail moving with them while her wings were spread slightly, to make her appear bigger than she was rather than flight.

When I finally came down, some minutes later and shook myself back to reality, I couldn't help the rueful smirk that crossed my lips as I still felt a phantom of her lips and tongue.

"Bloody hell..." I muttered with a smirk as I turned to the Volcano in my silver and red armor, my helmet folding up from the collar as the horns moved from my collar to the temples of the helmet, sealing me inside of my armor as I moved.

"Well then, time to go and get a new addition to my wall..."

 **XXX**

The climb itself to the top of the Volcano was rather easy, long since abandoned paths littered the side of them as they crawled closer to the top, originally having been used by an older group of Alchemists to gather metals from the swirling pool of molten metal instead of mining them. An interesting technique, and one that I made a note of for later as I remembered numerous rivers of Magma in the lower Tunnels that such a thing could have been done through, something that I smirked at before turning my attention back to the current situation. Marching up the ash and hot rocks to the Caldera of the active volcano as I peered over the edge of it, seeing the cave that the Red Dragons had made their homes in, the massive hole being a show of their size and being easily 15 m tall, probably so that the Dragons wouldn't have to crouch down too far to get out. Glancing around to my Living Armors, I smiled slightly as I reached over my shoulder and pulled my massive sword with one hand, enjoying the novelty of how such a large sword felt so light in my hands.

"Battle Formation. Advance in groups, avoid being hit by the Dragons and attack the Underbellies of the Dragons when I next say to Charge. Do not cluster too closely together when that order is given and move quickly to avoid attacks. Move carefully." I ordered as the Living Armors responded instantly, forming into 5 groups of 3 in triangular formations that formed a greater Pentagon with me at the centre as I advanced across the Caldera of the Volcano, rounding the pool of molten rock and metal that sat in the middle of the depression as I closed in on the cave. My eyes easily picked out details as I neared the cave, seeing how the rock had been melted to form the cave as well as how smooth it was, even noting a few pieces of Obsidian in the smooth rock to show how hot the Fires were. Mentally, I added stronger than average Firebreath to my list of capabilities for at least 1 of the Dragons. Moving down the Cave to a ramp, I looked down and saw how it twisted slightly, forming what I assumed to be a corkscrew as it went down, possibly as to prevent intruders from having a straight shot to the Horde.

I licked my dry lips as I advanced down, not hesitating as I knew that, in this situation, such a thing would be the Death of me. I was careful with each step as I knew that they could echo and I was trying to take advantage of the element of surprise, something helped by the fact that I had enchanted the Living Armors to be completely silent, a helpful trick for this. The downward spiral was tricky as I climbed down, keeping note of the design being steep to make it difficult for people to climb back out while making it highly likely for intruders to fall, slide down the cave and wake up whatever was waiting for them at the bottom of the tunnel. I used a bit of Elemental Earth to hold myself in position along with the Living Armors before moving down and coming to the bottom where another turn and a long corridor that looped back to the main cavern.

Inside the cavern, I noted the absolutely _huge_ amounts of glittering Gold, gems and God-only-knew what else scattered around and piling high into mounds that were easily twice as tall as I was, I made a note to send some people back here to retrieve all of it for Arthur, the Head Merchant, to inventory for Darklight later. Mentally, I was using the Earth to guide me in much the same way as the _Ravager_ , and it's Sister ship _Mercy_ , could see in the water, but my method was different as I felt the vibrations of everything moving on the ground. Literally, I could feel the heartbeats of the 2 massive Dragons as I noted how they were sleeping at the back of the cave as I walked closer with the Living Armors ahead of me, making a mental note of how thing the wall between the back of the room and the base of the Spiral entrance was, probably as a method of cutting of anyone trying to escape should it happen. Still, I had other things to worry about as I carefully picked my way over the piles of Gold before I noted climbed over one and saw my targets.

A pair of Red Dragons wrapped around each other, fast asleep and breathing softly as I stood on top of a pile of Gold before creeping forwards for the kill.

Only for fate, or more likely ROB, to screw me over as my foot hit a Gold Bowl that I _knew_ hadn't been there a moment ago before it cascaded down the slope of treasure, gathering pace as it banged against dozens of other trinkets before hitting the bottom with a loud _clang_. There was that moment of hope, you know, the aftereffect of something like this where you think the Dragon might still be asleep before it wakes up, yes, that is what happened her as I noted the first, closet Dragon opened it's eyes and saw me and my Living Armors before it moved to stand up and roar. I didn't Hesitate at that as the creature woke up it's mate and scrambled to melt me to dust.

"CHARGE!" I roared before the Living Armors took off at speeds that not even an Olympian could have matched with me right behind them as the first Dragon reared back and prepared to roar, red scales glinting in the light as I saw a light gathering and travelling up it's throat as the fins and spines extended from the base of the skull like a threat display of certain lizards. It would have been cool if I didn't know it was about to try and kill me.

I raced down the pile of treasure, already seeing the Living Armors moving around, the Enchantments allowing them to jump and dodge as they weaved around the Dragons' underbellies and cut into them with their swords as the 2 Dragons tried to squash them to turn and deal with me as I finally reached the base of the Gold mound and hit the dirt. Rock shattered as my foot made contact, quickly wrapping around my metal boot and securing it as I placed my next foot forwards and the rock shattered beneath me, forming into a rather small Snowboard style thing that I took control of instantly to boast forwards. As I neared the angry Dragons, the first one tried to take a swipe at me while it's mate unleashed Fire on the Armors, trying to burn them as most dodged, 2 of them being sindged and a last one losing it's left arm from the forearm down. I paid that no mind as I ducked the swipe as the claws glinted in the air, fire already filling the chamber as the claws passed by my helmet and I twitched my arm, my sword slicing into thick scales and cutting through them, though the attempt was of limited use as, while my sword was a decent length for what it was, a Greatsword, the Dragon's forearm was just a tad bit thicker. However, that didn't help it as I swept passed the Dragon and it howled in pain, I looked at the wound at that, noting the sudden green and black of the wound as said wound refused to stop bleeding, a feral grin on my face.

The beauties of Dragon-slaying Enchantments.

I wasn't given long to enjoy the small victory, however, as the other Dragon noticed it'd mate in pain and glared at me, ignoring the Armors cutting into his underbelly while the female, the one I had just injured, hissed and roared in pain as it glared at me, warily of what I had done. The male took this as meaning that I was the biggest threat to them as he reacted instantly, I felt the Flames gathering before they were launched from the Dragon like a tsunami, spreading the moment they left it's mouth rather than as a single beam of focused fire. I threw my free hand up as I discarded the Earth attached to my feet, not needing a distraction as I learned that Dragon Fire was a hell of a lot more difficult to control than normal Flames, as I created a small bubble around me that prevented the worst of the Flames from getting through.

It didn't stop the heat from singing my armor as the Male gave out, clearly believing that I was dead. I felt the exact moment when it thought that as it stopped the flames flowing through it's throat and shifted its weight, turning to attack the armors that had been harassing it and it's mate. I smirked at that as I took advantage of the distraction. A slightly twist of the Earth and a column of Rock shot up from under me, angled at the Dragons as to fire me at them. The Female barely noticed me in time to warn her Mate, who turned just in time to avoid getting his head cut off, but his left wing was not so lucky while gathered an absence of heat in my hand and threw it at the Dragon's head, hitting him in the head with a ball of water that was just this side of barely above 0 degrees as to not freeze into water. Still, the Bastard did not like that one bit.

He recoiled in shock as I sailed over him, I thought I had gotten away from that relatively clean until the Female Dragon hit me in the back with her tail, sending me through the air and smashing into a rather large mound of Gold and jewels before she started melting it all until it was turned into little more than a puddle of molten gold.

"I've heard of swimming in money, but this is a bit on the side of ridiculous..." I muttered to myself as I took a moment to cause a slight shift in the Earth to do 2 things, one being to create a rift to drain away the molten gold to cool in a Cylinder-shaped pit with a smooth edge while the other was to propel myself up once more as I suddenly had to twist out of the way as the Male had come up on me and tried to bit down on me, I could see the remains of one Living armor in his teeth, half melted at that, so I didn't want to push myself too far with that as I heard another roar of pain from the Female, noting that a group of 3 Living Armors had ganged up and had apparently been exploiting the large, dirty cut that I had made on her forearm, the sickly looking green and black having spread slightly as a result of the wound. They even managed to take off the limb at the upper forearm while the Female was distracted by the pain as another Living Armor managed to climb on to the back of the Female and started cutting at the Canvas-like tissue that formed her wings. I smirked at that as I judged my descent and aimed for the back of the Male as he tried to get a Living armor that just threw a heavily decorated golden table at his face. I smirked at that as I landed with ease before stabbing into him around the waist and started running up the back, dodging the numerous spines that went along the way as my blade cut through the tough hide and ripped into the spine of the Dragon.

When I finally came to the Shoulders, I didn't hesitate as I pulled my blade cleanly out of the flesh of the Dragon before swinging it at the Male's neck, aiming for the Spine as to kill it as to kill it even though I had still done a hell of a lot of damage already. I wanted to kill this thing as quickly as possible before moving on to kill the Female who was killing the remaining Living Armors, only 4 of them remaining after her wings had been clipped and she was smashing one of them into the rock until it deformed as I cut open at least half of the neck. Said Female instantly stopped at that moment as I saw her dropping the smashed and somewhat crushed remains of the armor as she mechanically turned to face me before glaring at me with such intensity that I doubt that it could have been called hate, it was just that far beyond it.

The Dragon gave another roar before charging me, firing more and more Fireballs at me all the while as I shifted myself on a moving plate of Earth and used a few Shadows to jump around the place before I finally decided to end things. I was starting to run out of power and didn't feel like being a ragdoll for a pissed off Widowed Dragon, the fact that said Dragon quickly grabbed me and started smashing me into the ground a few times before throwing me at the Stone wall hard enough to break through the wall and into the entrance corridor from across the cavern simply made my decision to end this as quickly as possible easier. With that in mind, Earth and Fire started to flow through the area around me as the pissed off Dragon charged and I smirked inside of my helmet as I felt slightly light headed as my end goal made itself known as Metal chains burst from the ground, hooks on the end as they wrapped around the limbs, tail and body of the Dragon before sinking into the flesh of the Dragon and yanking it, hard, to the ground as another few Chains wrapped around the damned things snout, keeping it incapable of moving the damned jaw to shoot fire at me.

With that done, I sighed slightly as I limped over to the immobile Dragon, my armor dented, slightly burnt and warped in some places, but still usable after a bit of repair, not that it would be difficult as I noted the slight trail of blood coming from the corpse of the other Dragon, not all the blood, but enough as it started to get absorbed by the armor and climbing up, the metal healing from the blood-based empowerments that had been placed on it. That still did little for me as I crossed the distance and took my sword before stabbing it through the top of the Red Dragon's skull, I was just glad that I had kept the damned thing in a death grip while I was being thrown around.

With the Dragons dead, one of which now had my sword sticking out of it's forehead, I turned and glanced around to see the chamber looking worse for ware but with most of the contents still intact, molten gold having cooled and now having either formed into a large cylinder below the ground or having coated the ground itself in a layer of precious metal. Either way, it was not too bad an ending to the day.

 _"Hana. You mind telling the others to come pick me up? I might have overused a bit of Magic, and now I'm barely keeping myself conscious."_ I sent over the mental bond between us as I got the sense of amusement from her side.

 _Of course, Dredd, I am already coming and your servants are coming too. I assume that the Dragons are dead then?_ She asked back as I felt darkness creeping in around the corners of my eyes as I laid down by the corpse of the dragon female, my body feeling tired as I leaned against it and slide to the ground.

 _"Oh Ye of little Faith..."_ I mentally muttered as I finally lost the battle to remain conscious, my head falling to one side before everything went dark. The last thing I saw being 2 bright, shining points of light coming from the corpses of the Dragons before shooting towards me, I had no idea what they were, but I didn't have much ability to think at that moment as I slipped into the realm of Morpheus.

 **XXX**

Stalking into the now quite Cavern, Hana smirked as she looked at the corpses that had lay around the place and the, admittedly impressive, horde that the Red Dragons had gathered along with the damage done to them along with that. Looking around, she could easily see the remains of the Living suits of Armor that her Dredd had constructed to assist him in this battle, all of them having been destroyed to the point of never working again and only serving as salvage for raw materials, but still, it was impressive what kind of beating they had taken as she instantly locked on to her Dredd.

He was laying on the ground, back leaning against the dead skull of the female Red Dragon, his sword piercing through her thick skull and heavy metal chains having hooked into her flesh and keeping her tied to the ground as her Dredd had delivered a killing blow to the beast that pretended to be a Dragon. Turning her attention back to her Dredd, she looked him over, seeing the blood flowing into the armor as the plates seemed to be repairing themselves thanks to the Blood Magic that he had placed in them, allowing them to repair and grow stronger by taking a bit of blood into itself. Combine that with her Dredd's ability to take samples of blood and gain the strength of them, and you could easily see someone that could recover from anything and keep on getting stronger with every drop of fresh blood on him. It was yet another thing that made him stand out from the average mortal. Quickly picking him up and lifting him from the ground, she easily held him over her shoulder, his armor barely weighing her down as she turned and flew out of the chamber, not noticing the extra weight on her as she moved up to the Caldera of the Volcano, leaving everything as it was until the Mortals could send a dedicated team to go through everything, something that would take a fair bit more time since their Master was needing rest.

As she flew out of the Volcano and dipped back into the underground, the Dragoness frowned slightly as she felt something shift within the mind of her Dredd before that frown turned into a slight sneer as she felt something change. 2 additional bonds had formed inside of his mind, they were incomplete, but present with the other end yet to form for some reason, but that was something for another time, Hana didn't even consider trying to break them as that would only cause more damage to her Dredd in the long run than if she left them. Grinding her teeth, she flew on through the tunnels, mentally preparing as she might gain competition for her Dredd.

He was _her's, Damnit!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing and all that you read here is for recreational purposes.**

 **AN: Sorry this took so long, but I was never the best when it came to doing Lemons, that and I was working on other things, so here you go, Chapter 3. Enjoy!**

 **XXX**

 **[LEMON BEGINS]**

Waking up was a right pain in the ass as I felt my like someone had hammered me with a sledgehammer while someone else had been poking semi-molten spikes through my brain before hacking it with a frozen ice-pick. It was not the nicest sensation to wake up to, but for some strange reason, I could remember half a dozen other sensations that were a hell of a lot worse for one reason or another. I didn't even bother questioning half of the memories in my head since most of them had been implanted in me by a ROB, especially since a lot of those memories involved me ending up in some less than pleasant situations. As feeling came back to me, I was quick to notice a few things that were most telling of the situation, however, a rather big one stood out to me as I cracked my eyes open.

Someone had taken all my clothes and left me in only my Boxers.

Now, normally, this would have been fine since I had memories of being dressed by servants at different stages of life and from times when I had apparently fallen asleep in my workshop, however, this was different as I opened my eyes to see a curtain of brown hair covering my face as I felt someone nestling their head into the crook of my neck. Not only that, but said person was lying on top of me, a woman given the impressive bust I could feel pressing into my chest, arms wrapped around my neck, legs tangled in mine while I felt something smooth and cool to the touch wrapping around my waist, pinning my arms as I felt something moving up and down the inside of my thigh. It was pretty easy to guess who it was lying on top of me at that point, it became even easier when said person lifted their face from my neck and smirked at me, eyes glinting with amusement as I stared back at her, our noses practically touching.

"Good Morning, Dredd... Sleep well...?" Hana purred, her lips stretched into a feral grin as I felt her arms tighten around my neck, a glint in her eyes that reminded me of an animal eyes a particularly good piece of meat.

"Not bad. You?" I asked back, giving a half shrug as I felt her tail, as I assumed that was what was wrapped around my waist and arms, sliding up and down my inner thigh, sending a jolt up my spine at the sudden contact as Hana smirked at that.

"It was... relaxing..." I bit the side of my cheek as I felt Hana shifting on my lap, grinding her pussy against my dick, doing my best not to groan as I saw her smirk at me out of the corner of my eye at that as she leaned further in, her head moving right next to mine as I felt her breath down the back of my neck before she leaned in even more, hot breath tickling my ear.

"But... I think that I can think of something even more... _relaxing_... _For both of us_..." Her voice dropped to a sultry purr that sent shivers up my back as she nibbled on my ear for a moment, sharp teeth tickling the skin of my inner ear as she skimmed the surface before retreating from my ear, leaving it with a lick. I wasn't really given much time to think after that as Hana came back to facing me before smashing her lips into mine, I wasn't given even a chance to register this as Hana slipped her tongue into my mouth. I felt it skimming over the inside of my mouth before it wrapped around my own tongue, yanking it into her mouth as she deepened the kiss, scaled hands grabbing the back of my head and pulling me closer to her. Even with that, I felt her tongue still moving, slithering around my own as she slipped it back into my mouth, sliding it along my tongue before deciding to drive down my throat.

I saw Hana's eyes glinted with amusement as my own eyes slammed open with a mixture of arousal and surprise from her rather bold actions even as I felt her tail shifting around me. Distantly, I heard the sound of ripping fabric as Hana's tail slipped up and wrapped around my dick, drawing another groan from me as she moaned in turn, enjoying herself as she squeezed my already hard-as-hell dick. I would have grit my teeth as she grinded her already soaking crotch against my dick, seeming to take pleasure in teasing me about that as her tail slipped up and down my length as I quickly found out just how possessive Hana was as she broke the kiss for a moment, slipping her tongue out and giving me a moment to breath as my face had started to turn blue before leaning back down, smirk on her face as she whispered in my ear.

"You are _my_ Dredd... No one will take you from me... _Never_..." She stated before ramming our lips back together as hard as she could, her tongue back to practically raping my mouth as I was forced back into the bed and her wings, her arms pulling me closer as I groaned again into the kiss. A moment later, both of us were moaning in bliss as Hana lined up her soaking wet lips with my dick before impaling herself on me, ramming it as far as it could go as I felt her shudder with ecstasy, her massive bust jiggling into my chest as she did so. Clamping tightly around me, I felt Hana dictating the pace as she didn't start out slow, she was rocking her hips back and forth right from the start, her claws gripping my head and neck tightly as her tail tightened around me even further, squeezing me. Moaning heavily, Hana never stopped to break the kiss as my body adapted, growing gills to let me breath as I remembered that I could shapeshift, having forgotten after being assaulted by the personification of lust that was Hana.

Mentally smirking, I went into action as my fingers shifted, changing from fingers into long, slim tendrils that rapidly extended out, I saw Hana's eyes shot wide before glazing over in lust and her moans growing in volume as the finger-tendrils slowly wrapped around her thighs, caressing them gently and pressing into them. This only served to cause her to speed up, her walls tightening around me as the muscles behind them pulsed in time, massaging my dick as she bucked back and forth. While this was going on, the tendrils that had been my thumbs continued to grow, wrapping around her waist, massaging it before travelling further up, skimming over her stomach and giving it a gentle squeezing, inciting another moan of ecstasy from the Dragoness before they reached her chest. The tendrils, long, smooth and leather-like appendages, wrapped around the massive mounds of flesh, each one being just slightly smaller than my own head, each tendril extending from my thumbs and ensuring that no skin was exposed. Within moments, Hana's tits were completely covered by the tendrils as they quickly changed, small mouths forming at the tips as said tips latched onto the hardened nipples that stood proudly from her perky, soft breasts.

Already on cloud nine from the merciless massage of the tendrils around her, 2 more tendrils moving and her eyes shooting wide as said tendrils suddenly forced themselves into her ass, withering inside of her body as she bucked wildly in lust and pleasure. However, as the miniature mouths latched onto her breast and started sucking, I smirked into the kiss as her eyes suddenly glazed over with pure bliss, her body going limp as her hips bucked automatically while her mind was overloaded. Squeezing her breasts, as I milked them in turn, the thick liquid happily flowing through the tendrils and back to me as the lashes of muscle tightened, almost painfully, around her, drawing only moans and screams of ecstasy that were suppressed as she had yet to stop kissing me. I grinned into the kiss as I felt her grip loosening around me, her tail going limp along with her arms as her legs dangled in a heap with mine, shifting the tendrils from my hands to my waist, I slipped my arms out of her tail before I moved.

Shifting my weight, I flipped the 2 of us over as I was on top of her now, she offered no resistance as her wings flipped open, lying flat on the King sized bed below us as I never broke contact with her. Picking up speed, I continued to plow into her as DNA flowed through me, selecting traits from a few creatures of choice before putting them into effect as red scales suddenly underlay my skin, my muscles grew stronger with that as my body temperature rose slightly. A moment later, I was plowing into her even harder as she soaked the bed, liquid flowing from her dick filled pussy like water from a sprinkler as I groaned at the tightness of her holes as a pressure built in my own dick before I shouted into her mouth.

The pressure was released explosively as Hana's eyes shot wide, slipping upwards as her pussy exploded with thick, white liquid from me as I pulled my dick out, keeping the tendrils attached to her as I finally broke the kiss after what seemed like an eternity. Hana panted at that, her hands still wrapped, however loosely, around my neck as she kept me close, a beaming smile on her face with an afterglow of pleasure, I was panting as well, but didn't get too far as I felt Hana's legs shift and lock around my waist again, her tail trapped behind her from flipping over.

"... Oh... No... Not...Yet... I not... Finished... Yet..." She managed between gasps for air as she weakly tried to pull me closer as another 3 tendrils extended from my upper back, one set wrapping around her wrists like a pair of handcuffs, another slowly wrapped around her neck, while the third wrapped around her ankles like shackles. I could only grin at that, parts of the Red Dragon essence that I was tapping into infusing me with their traits, including a need to dominate anyone that I fucked, and that trait was currently screaming at me to take her until she couldn't think straight, let alone walk.

"If you insist... Then I think it's time for round 2..." I purred as I leaned down, nibbling at her ear as she whimpered slightly at that.

Neither of us were going anywhere fast.

 **[LEMON ENDS]**

 **XXX**

The next time I woke up, it was not to be fucked by Hana, or another, as I woke up in the middle of a void of black, on a single platform of what looked like solid white marble, honestly, the entire thing reminded me of that Dimension that Tobi/Obito had in Naruto, but with a single platform rather than many. Looking around, I saw only a few things of note before seeing the person standing in front of me, I say 'person' but that may not have been the case given the way the person looked.

The person stood around 6 foot 6, slim build with a male body wearing a black suit with a black shirt, black tie, everything was black with black leather gloves and polished shoes, but those weren't the things that caught my attention the most, no, it was the face of this being. Or the lack of such, as it were. The being's head was smooth as glass, utterly smooth and lacked any kind of feature besides the images, at least I believed them to be images, of 3 galaxies floating around one another within the head. It was interesting to say the least, but I got over it quickly, my life had already gotten strange, this was just another thing to add to the already impressive pile as I guessed who this was.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're the ROB for me, right?" I questioned, getting a nod and an instant response of a chuckle from that. It was a deep, wobbling sound that resonated around the air, or whatever passed for it.

 **"Correct. I must confess, most do not figure it out that quickly, usually spending more time gawking around before finally realising that I am, in fact, not a hallucination of their insane imaginations. Congratulations for that, by the way."** The being, now confirmed to be my ROB, nodded at that as I nodded in turn.

"Ah, ok... I, also going to guess that you yanked me here... Wherever here is... to tell me something, right?" I asked as the ROB, once again, nodded. A moment later, 5 panels of light suddenly appeared before me, 4 I recognised as the initial Overlord CYOA sheets that I had seen in the email before being sent here, while the fifth was strange. It was a big box with what looked like a search bar in the middle of it, seeing this, I wondered over to it and pressed the search bar, an instant later I got a holographic keyboard appearing before me with a cursor blinking in the search bar. Glancing questioningly at the ROB, he answered the unasked questions.

 **"This is what I like to call Limbo. You can access it at any time you wish, merely by focusing on wanting to come here and, while you are here, time will be stopped wherever you were before you came, to which, you shall return the moment that you leave. As you already noted, you can access your CYOA choices through this, mostly to make changes to your choices if you wish, but the biggest thing is that you can use it to gain more powers as you advance."** I raised an eyebrow at that before he explained. **"For certain actions you carry out, you shall be rewarded with things like either Gold or Shards, the former allows you to summon more followers quickly while the later can let you gain more powers and skills. For instance, for killing the 2 Red Dragons, you gained 2 Shards as a bonus for both defeating one complication along with for defeating such potent magical creatures. I've already taken the liberty of applying both for you, allowing you to gain 2 more Dragon 'pets'."**

I groaned at the way he said that, knowing that he fully planned to probably hock me up with a Harem of some kind, even if I didn't take that option myself, before I returned my attention to the situation.

"How does the Gold option work? I assume that it will take a specific cost rather than vaguely saying '1 Gold' or something like that? Also, what is this search engine for?" I questioned, getting another chuckle from the ROB for that as he, at least I assumed it was male from the body, explained.

 **"Indeed. In order to gain a follower like this, you will need to pay for it in Gold. I've worked out a rather nice conversion system where 1 Gold is equal to roughly 1,000 metric tons of Gold, or 5,000 metric tons of silver, or 100 metric tons of Platinum, a more detailed chart is in the search engine if you look for it. As for the search engine itself, the use for that is 2-fold: The first part is to allow you to look through information of any world that you have, thus far, travelled to, like a personalised version of Google for your own use. The second purpose is to allow you to purchase either non-standard followers, or supplies that you want."** I raised an eyebrow at that, ideas already going in my head at that as I considered things for a moment and grinned. Seeing my grin, the ROB simply nodded and popped away, leaving me to my own devices as I started typing away.

This was going to be so useful...

 **XXX**

After leaving Limbo, and untangling myself from the mess of limbs that I had gotten into with Hana after a 15 hour sex marathon, I got up and got changed, a grin on my face as the tendrils retracted back into me and I left to get changed and showered. I was rather happy when I found out that this place had running water, something I took full advantage of when I was done and fully dressed in my armor 20 minutes later, something I was rather happy with as I left the Palace before heading for another area of the city, a grin on my face as I moved further into the crowded streets as people went about their days.

My destination was simple: The Manufactorum.

The Manufactorum was the name given to the collective housing for the Alchemists and Witches in the city, a massive hole in the ground that went down at least 30 m so far and was only getting deeper as more Alchemists, Witches or Magic users finished their training. The whole idea was that experiments and slaves would be stored at the bottom while more safe studies were conducted closer to the surface of the hole, each layer of said hole only being accessed via a series of lifts made from steel platforms that descended on cables to the different levels. All labs within the Manufactorum were reinforced with magic and the heavy granite walls had numerous Titanium-Tungsten plates slide into them by the Elementalists who were building the place. Still, the place was rather impressive as I looked down, the sounds of screams and numerous experiments going on as well as the bang of hammers as Steel Golems worked like an automated assembly line to create designs that I had give the Ok to allow into mass production.

Quickly stepping on to one such platform, I descended into the massive Lab-like complex before hopping off near the bottom, where I knew Ker'la had chosen as her personal lab and I could hear the sounds of distant screams as I walked along the perimeter of the cylinder before coming to the right door. Opening it, I had to admit, the sight I saw was a rather interesting one as I looked in.

Inside the room, I could see a dozen people, all chained to various platforms, all contained within Magically-reinforced glass tubes as lines of lightly glowing runes were etched into the ground. Glancing around, I easily saw Ker'la looking over a single such chamber as the person inside, a 20-something year old man wearing only a ratty pair of leather shorts, taking notes on a primitive clipboard before her hand flickered and the glow from the Runes intensified. I watched with interest as the man seemed to suddenly start to rapidly age, going from being 20 years old to over 150, decrepit and with a beard long enough to give Dumbledore, Santa Claus and Merlin a run for their money. Walking over to her as the glow diminished, I glanced at the board for a second before announcing myself.

"Good morning, Ker'la." I stated, causing the Witch to jump in surprise and shock as she juggled the board for a moment before glaring at me with a slight pout, I chuckled at her expression as she 'humphed' at me.

"... It's 8:30 at night, My Lord." The Witch noted simply as I raised an eyebrow at that before shrugging, not really caring all that much as I considered it time well spent.

"If you say so, though I can't really say as much since I just got up and I didn't really bother to try and find a clock." I stated off handedly as she shrugged in turn before I glanced back at various chambers as she walked over to the next, the sound of high-heels clicking on stone resonating through the chamber as I noted the surroundings. The walls were covered by various shelves with dozens of books, tomes, Grimoires, jars of ingredients and vials of liquids, half a dozen of which I could easily identify as blood of one type or another. Looking around, I quickly spotted a desk off to the side, the surface covered with notes and large pieces of parchment that had designs for Runic arrays all scribbled on with ink. Walking over to the table, I took a look at it as the purpose quickly became clear inside of my head, it was actually rather impressive, though I was still curious as to the effect in the end.

"Interesting design..." I muttered, hearing the click of heels growing closer. "A Runic array that modifies the flow of time within a given area while making sure that any being within the array still experiences time as anyone else would if they were outside of it. Basically allowing a person to live hundreds of years in a literal eye blink. Impressive, though why make something like this?" I questioned as she smiled at me, placing the clipboard down as she leaned against the table in front of me, crossing her arms under her bust and pushing the impressive pair of tits up as her dresses design made it nearly impossible to look at anything but them. Ker'la was smiling coyly as I glared at her for that, but I said nothing on that as she explained her own reasoning.

"Something you mentioned a while ago caught the interest of a few Alchemists. The whole thing about aging being a result of cell division along with the degradation of the genetic structure, not only that, but the whole thing about speeding up healing caught their attention as well as how, apparently, the Human body gains mutations as it goes through life. They came to me with the idea, figured I could throw something together and wanted to see about what the end results were." The Snake-haired witch explained as I connected the dots in my head.

"They wanted to increase the body's ability to adapt, while also increasing the rate of cellular regeneration, but, at the same time, they wanted to increase the number of times cells could divide, along with the speed of such a thing. The whole thing would require you to augment the time it takes for a cell to degrade, but that is what you're working on, right?" I asked as she nodded with a smirk.

"Yes, My Lord. These slaves came from the Alchemists, having already gone through different changes to see which one works, I put them through the process here, not down anything of significance before sending samples of blood back to them to get a closer look at. So far, there have been some rather interesting results, they've already managed to improve the immune system and decreased the rate of cellular degradation to the point where the slaves are surviving to the age of 175 on average-"

"-But they want to take it further and into the range where it may as well be biological immortality, right?" I asked, seeing where she was going. Ker'la confirmed it a moment later as she nodded before I rubbed my chin in thought, then a thought came to me as I considered that search engine in Limbo and wondered what I could do with that. Putting that to the side, I remembered the main reason I was here, also to do with Limbo.

"Alright, keep it up, but you mind sending me reports on your progress? I want to hear about things like this when they pop up, if only to see how they work and see what others are getting up to." I started getting a nod from the Witch as I continued. "Also, you mind popping by my Workshop in a few days time? I might have found something you might find interesting."

I got a nod and a look of interest at that as I left the room, screams following me all the way out as they made it rather clear that the Aging Runic Array was anything _but_ painless. Still, it did offer a good few ideas for the future as I considered what to do with it, if nothing else, it would certainly keep the bars happy, no longer needing to wait so long to get properly done beers since you could just throw the barrels into the arrays and let them do the work.

 **XXX**

Standing in Limbo once more, I looked around the CYOA options I had, noting that, yes, the ROB had put those 2 Shards I had gained straight into 2 new Dragon Pets that I needed to select all the stuff for as I looked through all the features before smiling and picking everything. For the first one, I decided to go with a Dragonne, a horse sized Dragon that could combine the strengths of 2 types of dragons, with that, I picked a it to be a combination of a Wurm and a Hydra. A Wurm was a legless, wingless dragon that was the physically strongest type of any given size with a jaw that could bite through most types of armor and saliva that could melt rock inside of a few seconds, they normally lived in deserts and tunnelled through the sand, but they could dig through rock just as well. A Hydra, on the other hand, was a highly venomous, 9 headed dragon that had a regenerative ability bordering on insane, healing minor wounds in moments while lost limbs restored themselves as a person watched them, along with this, they were very good swimmers. The combination of these 2 types meant that I was looking at something capable of both swimming and digging at rather impressive speeds, was venomous and could heal from any wound inflicted on it. A picture appeared next to the choices I had made so far for the new dragon, creating something that looked like a serpent at least 20 m long and 2 m wide, a massive jaw and huge plates of armor-like scales. A series of spikes and fins dominated the back of the head for a threat display, but I felt that it could be used for other things. Moving on to perks, I picked Human Form, Intelligence and Cunning, Magic and Bond, the latter of which meaning that it would be easier to communicate with said dragon before i moved on to the other Dragon and ran through options quickly.

For size, I went with a Drake, roughly meaning that the Dragon was going to be about the size of an average elephant, a rather nice meeting ground since this had a lot of strongly pronounced traits for what I wanted as I chose the type. For the type, I went with an Umbral, a western styled dragon with obsidian scales and a white underbelly, they were basically the first dragons and were the creators of the Runic language that the Dragons used, at least the ones that were intelligent enough to think. They didn't have a breath attack, instead, they Shouted... As in, they used Shouts like something taken straight out of Elder Scrolls Skyrim, which I found both interesting and bloody funny when I considered that any combination of the right words could summon a rain of anything from Lightning and Meteors to toads, squids and dozens of crocodiles just for the hell of it. For perks, I decided to go with the same 4 that I gave to the first Dragon, mainly since I saw them as being the most useful of them all, that and I was one of those people that never liked a head-on fight, or at least one that didn't have the deck stacked in my favor.

With the 2 Dragons picked, I had to chose where they would 'spawn', for lack of a better term, leading to me causing them to spawn in the clearing above ground, the same place where I had shown Fergis the Predator Bow I had created and I smiled as I saw the changes take before moving on to other things.

Moving around the panels, I went over to the search engine and began to have a look through it, quite enjoying the fact that it seemed to act as a connection to every internet site that I had remembered from my past life as well as having access to all the ones that I couldn't. Literally, I was able to wander around the Warhammer 40K wiki with ease while I looked over a few things for ideas before looking at the single 'app' that came with the search engine. Really, it wasn't an app, but a store, a store that I could access and purchase anything I wanted from by entering a name and selecting the item, person or being that caught my interest. I could purchase animals, books or items from any game or from real life of my past life before yanking them here for me to use at my pleasure. That actually got me to thinking of dozens of ideas as I quickly went about purchasing dozens of textbooks on any and all kinds of science that I could remember, ranging from physics to chemistry to genetics, from the most basic all the way to doctorate level stuff and beyond.

Along with that, I also bought a few dozen samples of various animals that I felt would be of interest to the Alchemists. Immortal Jellyfish, Darwin's Bark Spiders, Black Widow Spiders, Brown Recluse Spiders, Mantis Shrimp, Silkworms, Bullet Ants, Blast Ants, even a dozen Cockroaches and Octopi, all kept in special enclosures that would be spawned with them. The total price of this entire transaction was roughly 70,000 metric tons of Gold, 7 Gold, a pittance when compared to the vast size of the treasury that I had at my fingertips, but I needed to be careful of orders as I didn't want to bankrupt my city. With that in mind, I didn't bother buying any of the non-standard followers, most of them costing 5 Gold each, with the added option of making them absolutely loyal to me for triple the cost, that wasn't too bad for the lower level ones, but the higher level ones cost as much as 250 Gold at the base level, or higher in some cases. I was just glad that the thing could take alternative forms of payments in other metals. With that done, I left the Limbo, my recent purchases appearing in my Workshop as I returned to my bedroom, where Hana was still laying around, having finally covered herself back up with her scales to give the appearance of clothing as I felt the 2 new bonds forming.

 _Master._ Spoke one voice, smooth as silk and seeming to be full energy as I imagined someone that liked to be in motion, but it held steel and a cautious nature that would strike at even the slightest provocation.

 _My Lord._ Came the second voice, again, it was smooth, but it carried authority with it, the wisdom of eons and experience beyond mortal years as I smiled slightly and went to leave the room, still wearing my armor as I headed for the clearing with ease. However, I couldn't help the slight groan as both voices were female.

Yep, the ROB was trying to set me up with a Harem or something... Whatever...

 **XXX**

Entering the clearing, I glanced around easily before taking in the 2 Dragons and smiling. The Dragonne was sitting, coiled up in a pile as her head jutted out the top, large eyes entrenched in dark brown, thick and heavy scales constantly on alert as they took in every detail within an instant while seeming to memorise me the instant I stepped out of the tunnel. The Drake, on the other hand, was sitting much like the Sphinx, proudly and without a care in the world, but I could still see the underlying tensing like a coiled spring. It was not arrogance that prevented the Umbral Drake from being on guard, but a knowledge that nothing would get close to her to actually do anything of consequence, I could easily feel the magic in the air around her, a trap in waiting for any fool without a survival instinct.

Walking into the clearing, both Dragons moved to greet me as they both transformed into Human forms that could have given Hana a run for her money in terms of sheer beauty. The Dragonne turned into a half woman, half snake-like lamia being, a tail over 8 m long and covered in thick scales on both the underside and topside, but easily as agile as you could get. Her top body, on the other hand, was insane. Her arms were covered in scales and claws, mixed with spikes coming back from the forearms, thick plates covering her shoulders as a layer of thick scales covered her chest, wrapping around her massive pair of tits that were each bigger than my head like a tight tube top. More spikes came from the base of her jaw, angled back as at least 4 horns came around her temples pointing back as well, her face lacked scales, but I could easily see the interest in her green, serpent-like eyes as a slip tongue slipped out from time to time. Short black hair was cropped back, barely reaching the back of her neck, but that was fine as she looked like a literal goddess in her own right as she 'stood' at around 7 foot 6, towering over me and the Umbral with ease while her tail flicked around.

The Umbral, on the other hand, was much like Hana in terms of appearance, but only her head and neck was not covered in obsidian black scales and thick spikes. She was shorter than Hana, only standing around 6 foot 9, but her presence seemed to fill the area as she gave an impression of being impervious, royalty even. One thing I did note was that her bust, while large, was at least in line with humans in that it wasn't larger than my head, probably an F-cup bust, at least, as I looked her over and saw the long silver hair she wore in a braid, shining slightly from the glowing, blue runic marks that lined her scales like tattoos. Her eyes were also different, glowing cyan slits on a completely black background that seemed to scan everything while her face was in a completely neutral expression compared to the other dragoness, who had a small, coy smile on her lips.

"Hello Master..." The first Dragoness stated, the Wurm-Hydra Hybrid coming up behind me, I felt her arms circle around me, crossing my chest and holding on to the opposite side of me as she pulled me closer into her until my head was being pressed into the valley between her... generous assets. A shiver ran up and down my spine a moment later as her tongue tickled the inside of my ear before she moved closer, hot breath caressing my ear.

"... My name is Vix'na... But you... _Master_... Can call me whatever you want..." She purred suggestively into my ear as I glanced in the direction of the other Dragoness, who was now standing less than a meter from me, something that surprised me for a moment as I remembered her being further away than that a second ago. Seeing my gaze on her, along with the unvoiced question, she bowed her head slightly.

"Juno, My Lord." She remarked quietly as I nodded as best as I could while Vix'na continued to toy with my ear, pressing her bust into the sides of my head as well as i turned my attention to the bonds that I felt within the back of my mind. Hana's was easy to find, a portal to a plane of obsessive possessiveness that seemed to dip in and out of stalker territory like a bloody yo-yo, before I moved on to the other ones and had to suppress a groan at what I saw. Vix'na's mind was a rocky, harsh place with nothing but desert and sheer cliffs of rock, a reflection on her as a very 'survival of the fittest' mentality that seemed to be drawn to those strong enough to survive and thrive in any kind of situation. Juno's mind was rather different, a floating island in an endless sky filled with few clouds with a lake spawned in the centre of the island, numerous animals running around as I saw them, it was a tranquil place, reflecting that of someone that has mastered both their craft and themselves. However, in both minds, I found temples, not old, ruins, but proper temples that looked to be recently built and strong regardless of the environment.

The temple in Vix'na's mind had me in full armor, standing over the corpses of the 2 Red Dragons, holding my sword up high from above the dead creatures, a show of strength that seemed to be all that she could think of. The temple in Juno's mind, on the other hand, had a statue of me in my work clothes, a table before me and a book in hand as I seemed to be carrying out some kind of alchemical experiment while a fire burned freely in my off-hand, a display of scientific endeavour and advancement, not to mention my knowledge of alchemy that I gained as I appeared here. Both Temples were like shrines to one aspect that the 2 Dragonesses found interesting, and they focused on that, it was like an obsession, not as powerful as that of a Black Dragon, but I was willing to bet that the ROB had planted it in them simply so the Bastard could shove me into a harem.

Hell, I could feel the affection, or lust, coming from the 2 of them as I bit down on my tongue to prevent a groan from slipping out as Vix'na slide her hands further down while I wasn't paying attention, her tail wrapping around my ankles as well while Juno softly stalked closer, her hips swaying slightly as she moved along with her chest.

Sometimes, I wish my life made sense again...

 **XXX**

It took the better part of 10 minutes to finally escape the grip of the 2 new Dragonesses before I finally managed to leave and headed elsewhere, mostly as a way of thinking as I went to the top of one of the Spires in Darklight and looked over the city. It was growing, slowly but surely, it was growing, and I was happy for that as the population grew slowly with it as more children were born, I had even commissioned spaces in each Spire to be built to allow for small parks with grass and obstacle courses for them to play on to be build. It was nothing big, but it helped to improve the morale of the Hold I controlled.

With that, I had already started re-equipping my warriors for battle. Yes, the Empire was gone from the Island, but they were still out there, growing stronger as they conquered other lands while more people suffered, sure, I was probably going to conquer this world anyway, but at least I would have been efficient about it and simply killed the people that were bothersome rather than enslaving them where they could be trouble. Since this was Overlord 2, I knew that for certain as i considered the Elves of Everlight and Sanctuary, I still remembered what some of those with Elven heritage in Darklight thought of them and smirked at that. What had been said by Tal'den alone had said was not something that should have been repeated in mixed, let along any, company.

It all came from the fact that those idiots calling themselves Elves were not really Elves, yes, their ancestors were Elves, but the blood had been diluted with time until now where those hippies were more Human than Elf. The ears were a dominant feature so they stuck around for generations, but the they were barely even a single hundredth of an Elf after so many centuries of allowing the blood to mix with Human blood, I could understand that. Them calling themselves elves was a bit of an insult to the actual Elves that of Darklight, most just called them abominations, and I had to work though numerous written requests to being a war of extermination upon them each week, usually at least 23 to 52 per week on average, but that was going up as things improved. Some of the arguments brought forwards were actually rather compelling as some of the Elves had even tried seducing me into signing the order, offering their bodies up in exchange, it took a lot of willpower to turn them down, though I did give the proposal some thought since I never had a very high opinion of the Hippies, especially that idiot, Florian Greenheart, for blowing up the Tower Heart.

Something of note to keep in mind was that the last Overlord had not allowed Rose to take his son to Nordberg to live and grow up, resulting in said son being killed with the Tower, not to mention the explosion actually sent off a potent chain-reaction that also caused the Netherworld to be flooded with magma. The Minions were utterly wiped out, along with that line, but it did work in my favor since I didn't need to worry about competition for the right to rule this world.

I smirked at that thought as the sound of hammers striking metal filled the air as Blacksmiths worked, turning dozens of carts filled with raw ores and materials into new armor and weapons that I had designed and put into production before I had went to storm the Dragon's' Lair in the volcano.

Yes... Everything was about to get interesting...

 **XXX**

 **AN: So, if you guys have any feedback, please be sure to tell me. Also, At some point, I'll put up a URL, or something, for the pictures of the Overlord CYOA for everyone to look over, for a better idea of what I'm talking about half the time. But still, hope you enjoyed this.**


End file.
